In the Odyssey, Homer tells us of Odysseus’s struggle while away from home: “By nights he would lie beside her, of necessity, in the hollow caverns, against his will, by one who was willing, but all the days he would sit upon the rocks, at the seaside, breaking his heart in tears and lamentation and sorrow as weeping tears he looked out over the barren water.” Unlike me (I’m not quite Odysseus, after all), Odysseus does not choose his journey, but has it thrust upon him by the gods. This lack of choice, along with the trials he has to face, and the sheer length of the journey, wear him down, and in the Odyssey’s opening chapters we see a cynical, beaten man eager for the journey to end.
It seems then that once home, Odysseus would relax. Having won back his kingdom, reunited with his family, our hero would choose to rest his days away, King of Ithaca, troubled by the sea, and travel, no more.
For Odysseus, the journey around the Mediterranean was the defining moment of his life. Like Churchill said so eloquently, “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” Churchill’s emphasis is on preparation, on being ready to meet challenges. One of the aspects of what was once defined as manliness, but which could now be said to apply to all people, is the necessity of overcoming challenges. But when these challenges are in front of us, around us, when we are in the thick of them, they can feel totally unbearable, and we wish for nothing more than for them to end.
One of my favorite quotes on challenges and life comes from Fr. Alfred de Souza, who writes: “For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” This is more than just the nostalgic tinting of time – that tendency that we have to wash the pain away from the past and insist that it was all good, that we needed it, that it made us who we are. Those thoughts are somewhat true, but what’s more true is that challenges, like the winds of Calypso, fill our sails and propel us forward.
Seneca captured the sentiment perfectly. “Without an adversary, prowess shrivels. We see how great and efficient it really is only when it shows by endurance what it is capable of.” Odysseus laments his journey, and the challenge it provides, but it also defines him. This is the moment he is perfectly suited for, one that will require all of his considerable strength, wit, and charm.
Perhaps, for a time, Odysseus did rest. He certainly deserved it. But Tennyson suggests to us in his masterly work “Ulysses” that though perhaps Odysseus did enjoy returning to Ithaca, he soon longs to be back out on the open road. “How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / to rust unburnish’d, not to shine with use!” Odysseus rests, but an end to his journeys is not in his nature. In a reversal of my previous post, he may stop, for a time, but eventually he will set sail.
The posts thus far here in Australia have been centered pretty heavily on the history and culture of Euroriginal Australians. Though I’ve mentioned the Aboriginals, and the twin history of Australia, I haven’t really talked about them. So here’s a bit about them:
If any of you have done much travel, you’re likely to have run into Australians in hostels or in bars, pubs, and the ski slopes of Japan, as I have. Years ago, I asked one of them why it seems like so many Australians are travelers. For perspective, this man had been on the road with his mate for the better part of seven months. Compare that to our typical American vacations of a week or two. He told me that travel was a tradition for Australians that dated back to the Aboriginals. They termed it “walkabout”.
Walkabout began as a rite of passage for Aboriginals, mostly men, as they entered adulthood. They would leave their families and venture off into the “out back”, the vast hostile wilderness of the Australian continent, on their own personal Odyssey. Forced to fend for themselves, totally alone, these men discovered reservoirs of strength and endurance that would help them to provide for their tribes when they returned.
The modern walkabout is much different, of course, but much of the sentiment is the same. Travel out on your own, learn about yourself and how to survive, bring back what you’ve gained to the people you care about. Obviously, Aussies don’t take this so seriously, and they mostly party and act debaucherously (Aussies are a riot, actually, and if you meet a group of them, buckle up. You’re about to have a good night out). But the incredible thing about travel is that you can’t help but grow out of it. In the land of the familiar, you blend in so well that you hardly notice yourself, like a camoflouged man standing in the trees. Step outside that familiarity, and you start to see yourself more and more clearly. Eventually, you know who you are.
So you return. And, for awhile, you still have that feeling of travel, that comfort in yourself, that sureness of identity. Slowly though, it will fade. “Wanderlust”, the cliche millennial term for it, sets in.
Aboriginals understand this, and their religious views require them to reckon with it. The current official term for walkabout is “temporary mobility”, and captures the nomadic idea that I’m talking about. They are not continuously on the move. Rather, they move for as long as is needed to come to terms with themselves, then stop for awhile, then move again when it’s time. This has actually been a source of tension in Australia as well, as western employers have been frustrated with employees of Aboriginal background suddenly leaving with little or no notice, moving to disparate parts of the continent.
The idea of walkabout resonates strongly with me, which should be obvious. I should insert a cautionary statement here: these are just my surface impressions of a world that I really know almost nothing about. I may be woefully misrepresenting the views of the Aboriginal people, as I may have been woefully misrepresenting the characters in my previous posts. If my writing seems insensitive to you, know that my intention is not to stereotype or diminish a people to some single element that I take pleasure in, but rather to take a look, even just a quick glance, at a people who are different than me, for the sake of better understanding myself and my place in the world. To me, this is an essential element of travel. I am not an anthropologist, after all. My goal is not to document the cultures I see, but to witness some small part of how others live.
By now, if you’ve been reading this blog over the past week or so since I launched it, perhaps you’re thinking, “Max, this is some interesting stuff, but isn’t this supposed to be a travel blog? You’re not really putting much about these places you’re going to. What about the Sydney Opera House? What about the public transportation? Hostels?”
I get that. Most travel blogs follow the same basic idea: they’re basically guidebooks. So I’ll just say that you can think of this as “not quite” a travel blog (see what I did there?). There are plenty of travel blogs out there – plenty of places where you can learn about where to go, how to get there, the best ways to save money, live like a local, etc. If I wrote about that, I’d just be adding to the din.
I want to offer something different: a mindset on travel as more than just a hedonistic escape, but as a focused pathway to reflection and growth. As walkabout in the truest sense. Travel is, to me, an opportunity not just to sit on beaches and go skydiving, or drink in youth hostels and party in clubs in country X with women (and men) from country Y, enjoying themselves on their gap year. That stuff is fun, and travel should be fun, but that’s not my goal. My goal is to seek out ways in which travel can be fulfilling. Travel offers us an opportunity to see the world first-hand, to interact with its history, culture, and people. It is a chance to grow in ourselves by stepping outside ourselves. Like Odysseus, travel alters us, pushes us, teaches us, forces us to reckon with our weakness, expose ourselves, control and move beyond ourselves. It pulls us from the comfort of routine into unfamiliarity and, in fact, radical discomfort. Travel, properly done, is somewhat painful, and you know you’re doing it right when you feel fatigued, yet inspired at the end of each day. Eager to rest, yet eager to do something more.
“Come, my friends, / ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”