You want to know what travel is? It's not something you just do. You don't save money and go travel for a week, a month, or a year. You don't say, I will travel there, I will travel then, I will travel that way. It's a way of living. It's not necessarily constant moving, though it can be. It's the constant freedom to move.
In a way, everyone is a traveler. Some simply never realize this. Some actively try to resist it, even subconsciously. Those who are considered ' travelers' are simply aware of the reality of their existence.
That's where the argument of the difference between trips, holidays, vacations and travels comes from. That's why some say - you aren't a traveler! You are just a tourist! It's not what or how they are moving, it's how conscious they are of it.
It annoys and frustrates and grates the pride of some (myself included) when a tilly-hatted, journal-clutching, guidebook worshiping, media-post-whoring, self-styled 'adventurer' describes his or her life-changing, eye-opening, transcendentally self-enlightening discovery of the indescribably touching, unique culture of _____ that he or she unearthed during his or her pre-booked, all-inclusive package deal of a 2-week volunteering mission to _____. It's not the how, it's not the why, it's not the how long that grinds the teeth of a self-aware 'traveler'. It's the complete lack of awareness of life and how it goes about its peculiar business.
Most people travel in much the same way that they work and live at 'home'. They attempt to control their fate. If you had never heard of Georgia, never seen its name written in a book or its landscapes printed in a magazine, never heard its stories in the news or its authors on the page, you would never go there or know firsthand about it unless you were aware of your reality, and your own strange, twisting destiny led you to it.
True travel is something that every single person does every day they are alive (and perhaps before and afterwards as well). But true travelers, that is to say those who are aware of this, are the only ones who could possibly discover those unheard of places, and those are the places that the truly good benefits of traveling, of life, are found. The best things in a life are the unexpected, previously unknown things.
Therefore, to give yourself completely to this wandering trail you call your life, and abandon the notion of control, is the best chance you have to experience the very best (the the very worst) aspects of life. That is why I consider myself and call myself a traveler. Things can and do change - I am open to them. I use my willpower and make choices, but only according to my conscience and desires. A forbidden love? I'll chase it. A dangerous path? I'll follow it. In this way I can accept and even welcome everything that comes my way, even or especially the things generally considered 'bad'.
When do people get angry? Often it is when something they have tried to control and direct goes wayward. The easiest solution is to cease the fruitless efforts of controlling things. Even if you were to succeed in this, it would result in a relatively boring existence.
If you could control every aspect of your life, you would be limited by your own imagination. If you control nothing, the possibilities extend to the universe. The difference is incomparable. Infinity to your mind? It's impossible. For me, it is a simple albeit scary thought.
The desire to control is, in essence, fear of the unknown. Yet the unknown is what provides all the good things in life! Say you have never seen the ocean. It is unknown to you completely. Thence, fear. You control it so that you never have to see it, touch it, hear it. You will never know the beauty, the serenity, the wildness of the seas. You also will not drown a terrifying death, nor get swallowed by a whale. If you can find happiness in ignorance, good for you. We could blind, deafen and take away all the senses of our children as they come into this world. They could live a safe, quiet, peaceful life. They would never witness those terrifying things we strive to avoid by simply looking away. They wouldn't know fear. False! I reckon they would. I reckon they would feel it far more often. All fear is the same. Societies just put their own abstract limit on where those fears lie. If the absolute is death, we all face it no matter where we draw the line.
So, if you can find happiness in ignorance, good for you. For me, I am the most happy when I live in the unknown. That edge you always hear about, part in awe and part in derision? Find it and firmly step past.
Do you think the 'greats' of our world balked at this chasm? Perhaps, but not for long. In a physical sense, the polar explorers obliterated the edge. Mentally, Galileo took a swan dive.
This is why proper hitchhikers, artists (not plagiarists) and even serious drug takers (not junkies) can instill in most 'regular' folks (or non self-aware travelers) a sort of derisive admiration. They are envious, because they lack the fortitude to follow their own path, and name it luck. They admire, because they think they cannot do the same in their own way, and call it natural talent. They hate, because these explorers of space, time and mind reflect their own massive and unavoidable weaknesses, whether or not they recognize them.
The 'edge' isn't a dividing line, it's a spectrum. It constantly advances for those who chase it, and is located at varying distances for every soul. But it is tangible, in the way that we all have our own. I am not worthy of giving advice to anyone other than myself, but I will anyways. Find that line, and endeavor to always keep it behind you.
The edge is part of the.. draw.. of gambling. You throw your money across the gap and hope that the unknown tosses back more.
It's an aspect of love. You give it to someone who, for you, is standing on the other side. If they give you theirs too, it is ecstasy. If not, it may take a while to find yours again. But if you were to never give it away in fear of losing it, you will never know that ecstasy. Moritz Thomsen said "The opposite of love is not hate; it is boredom."
It is synonymous with what we call growth. If the toddler never attempted to walk, it certainly would never fall, but it also would not learn. Likewise with all.
I do not have any more words, so I will use those of Graham Greene and Maude Pratt, recorded by Paul Theroux.
'I'm going to wind it up. Call it a day.'
'Whatever for?' Greene asked.
'I'm too old to travel, for one thing.'
'Which Frenchman said, "Travel is the saddest of the pleasures?"'
'It gave me eyes.'