Since my formative years, I have attested to a strong desire to travel. My minor obsession was sown by my parents, who brought me from Florida to British Colombia before a dozen years had graced my blond brow. As my mane browned, my world-wise parents devoted spare time and money to my international, itinerant education. My lessons were taught by the coral of Bora Bora, the croisant of Paris, the Volkswagons of Taxco, the black waters of Istanbul, the harbor of Bergen, the slums of San Jose, the neons of Las Vegas, and the sausages of Austria. Abroad, I was a freewheeling sponge. I obediently dedicated myself to my obligations: observe and enjoy.
Between Canada with the gramps and my most recent international flight, 22 countries have borne my heavy feet for a significant period of time. Now I return from six months abroad in Cuenca, Ecuador and Santiago, Chile. The inhabitants of those lands amiably demanded the development of bilingualism, which I delivered. Their societies, people, and institutions and I interacted. We changed each other, but they changed me more, by virtue of more mass. I tried to resist, but alteration is inevitable. I capitulated. I had no other choice! But I maintained my suspicion, skepticism, and interrogative nature. I refused to believe anything which I could better disbelieve. Knowing I could know nothing, I tried to analyze things objectively. HAH! I learned that all observation is theory laden. All is sucked into a philosophical vortex of past experience.
So what do years of travel, purported travel love, and modern migrations produce. A kind of human universalism which is founded on principles of fundamental human similarity and subsequent, life-formed, and superficial cultural difference. Anthony Burgess affirms my belief, " Fundamentally people are all the same, and I've lived among enough different races long enough to be dogmatic about this."
I continue to express some other thoughts: no two things are the same, all things are connected, cause and effect is impregnable, and purity is non-existent. At least, these are some of my basic beliefs, based on my 21 years and my perusal of the accumulation of recorded human experience. They do not well-match any thought-system that I am aware of, but rather represent bits from here and there; from the forms and figures of my life. My philosophy is a whole, composed by innumerable influences, ideas, and impressions.
A character in a Janwillem van de Wetering - one of my many i's - novel called The Japanese Corpse presents the position eloquently: "What would I be? A good question. I have no answer. My mind is clouded by the countless thoughts with which I have identified myself and which have all left their traces."
It appears to me that delineated doctrines and ideologies are limiting and unrealistic. They are symbolic, theoretical, imperfect. And, we are equally imperfect, in our roles as adherents, constructors, channelers, etc. Ideology serves a purpose, but works best when paired with aggressive skepticism and liberal democracy; freedom to share, evaluate, and choose, in the absence of imposing thought-crushing power, represents the best outcome in the philosophical and moral realm. We should combine human and personal experience to settle on personal belief: what is and what should be: the structures of science and metaphysics: our understanding of the world and its features.
In a future writing, I will explore whether or not some personal thought-systems should be considered to be better or more desirable than others, and what that should mean for the actions of individuals. For now, I go full circle in order leave this digressive article where it began: travel.
Travel, according to my aforementioned propositions, is (in part) an expedition for observation of human cultural differences. It is an expansion of experience, hence an expansion of the foundation from which we make belief choices. It is risky and radical, involving new bumper car contexts of cause and effect, influence and mutation. New friends and figures and institutions and forces, channeled through our theory-laden viewfinders, distort that which we know and impulse change. With the great human power of personal sovereignty, we decide to change positively or negatively - evolve or devolve. And, of course, change is inevitable...
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