Have you noticed there is a certain feeling you get only on the way back home? When you think about the experiences from your most recent journey, it just doesn’t feel the same as before. And because of that, you experience a slight change, than when you first left home. Notice it’s always when you head out somewhere, that you meet someone by chance, and realize relationships are formed only when you travel. It’s the journey, not the destination, but that doesn’t make sense until you get there.
It’s the road, not the inn.
— Miguel de Cervantes
Taking off into uncharted territory is one of the things I live for. We need certainty in life, but without the unknown, we would have nothing exciting to look forward to. If you knew everything that would happen before it did, enjoyment dissolves, serendipity disappears, and surprise has no room to fill. This is the reason why it seems to take so long whenever you want to get somewhere. It’s the optimism — to want to be there now — while knowing there is ground to cover. You want the distance to be shorter, to get closer to your desired goal. There is a drawback however, because as you find yourself in this state, you are neither here, nor there. Your mind is in one place, your body in another, and this is exactly when you need to be reminded:
I don’t want to hurry it.
When you want to hurry something,
that means you no longer care for it,
and want to get on to other things.
— Robert Pirsig
Presence is the greatest state you are able to experience, in pursuit of anything you want. By being in the present, the here and now, you can slow the brain’s perception of time, and extend life longer than it actually is. But what would your life be, if you lived it alone?
Getting in the car, notice what’s inside, rather than what’s outside. Instead of checking the rear view mirror, use your eyes to see what surrounds you. Traveling alone for most of my life, I realized it’s better to have people come along for the journey, to experience it together. When you share the journey, you understand that it isn’t meant to be traveled all on your own.
The memories we gather together are moments when our lives intersect. Our minds take snapshots, and as we stroll down memory lane, we remember our past life in pictures of how things once were. In those moments — in our best moments — time is gone. Nothing is missing. Time is a phenomenon that we add to the present. When we are happy, time vanishes.
Of all the adventures and challenges, the hardest part can be the act of coming home. It’s this strange feeling that signals the end of all the freedom you enjoyed on the road. Although it’s the same path you took to get to your destination, coming back home always seems shorter. It’s because the road has a different meaning. The distance closing in, is something you don’t want happening. It is faster on the way home, because you don’t want it to end. All roads have a beginning and end, so the only thing you can do is embrace it. You never know where your journey will take you next, but when you go, bring a friend.
It is good to have an end to journey toward;
but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
— Ernest Hemingway
