The Unfortunate Deja-Vu

A boat on the course to shipwreck

Dear Reader, have you ever gotten on a car, train, boat or plane with the aim of traveling to another city, province, state or country? I’m sure you have, and regardless of what your purpose was (Be it tourism, visiting family, studying, moving, or working, etc…) I’m pretty sure something happened that changed you; hopefully for the better.

Whether one realizes it or not, we are constantly learning new things each day that passes, from everyone and everything. I would even dare to say that travelling is the most enriching live experience one may undergo. Getting to know new environments, cultures and meeting new people are necessary stepping-stones in the process of growing into better versions of ourselves.

After all, chasing after the unknown is something, not just necessary, but that comes naturally to humanity, since way before we became the humans we are today.

It is this sense of curiosity that lead the first Homo hedelbergensis to leave the African plains to venture onto European territory 600,000 years ago. As even more thousands of years progressed, our ancestors explored further beyond and progressively populated the continents of Asia, Australia, and The Americas. (This timeline serves well to detail how early humans spread around the globe)

The case I’m trying to build here, is one for how rewarding the exploration of “uncharted” territory is for human development. It has been thousands of years since us humans started charting the seas, mapping our nations and naming the stars. Yet, there is still a vast universe of knowledge waiting to be charted by each and every one of us.

Although, it may be true that humanity has grown, walls have grown with it, and they’re pushing us farther away each day. We’ve built ships and planes, yet, a big part of government budgets go into keeping seaports and airports under great scrutiny, granting very limited access. We’ve built the highest towers ever, yet, there are thousands of slums where complete families have to live in less than 38sqm. We Invest billions of dollars in organizations that aim to achieve world peace, yet the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute calculated that US$ 1.7 Trillion were spent world wide in military alone in 2012(just a sheer 4 years after this millenniums greatest financial crisis). We’ve built huge country clubs and mansions; yet, war veterans and psychologically troubled individual fill the gray-ish black streets where long ago flowers bloomed.

We’ve come a long way, but we’ve forgotten many things along the road.

At this rate, humanity seems like a ship at full throttle. One, whose captain prefers to throw passengers overboard if they refuse to overwork the already tired engine, and who has no intention of shifting the course back to mainland. What our captains are forgetting is that people can’t survive much time in open sea, and crossing the oceans with an overworked engine is a terrifying omen. The even sadder reality is that if we were to jump ourselves and swim to shore, we would never make it.

The greed and selfishness of some have set the course of this ship away from mainland, knowing that there aren’t enough lifeboats for all passengers. The world’s current observable political and economic patters are alarmingly unsustainable, and beg for a quick re-routing. Unless we ourselves take onto changing the course of this ship in order to travel and get to know the world on our terms (Like the ones of today's entrepreneurs who cast light on communities and countries after the spark of experiencing or longing for a different reality), in no time, those who have seen the chaos at the end of the movie “Titanic” will not necessarily face icebergs, but will definitely be in for an unfortunate Deja-Vu.