I’ll start by giving a shout-out to my new friend Paul, from the UK, who saved this blog this morning (perhaps to your disappointment). I left my hostel in Melbourne, having packed what I thought were all my things, and went to get breakfast at a nearby cafe. Here I received a call from Paul, who asked if I’d left. I responded in the affirmative, at which point he informed me that I’d forgotten both my laptop and kindle. In other words, my digital life.
To Paul this was just a matter of course. He told me upon my return that he hadn’t even considered stealing the nearly two thousands dollars worth of electronics (he couldn’t have gotten any of the information in my laptop, it being encrypted, but he still could have just formatted it and sold it or used it as he saw fit). This simple act of moral decency was automatic to him, but I wanted to say publicly how much I appreciated it. As the meme goes: “faith in humanity, restored.”
Anyway, I’ll be off today to my next country (New Zealand, if you were wondering), but I wanted to make one more entry from Australia. So here goes:
Beauty
Why do we think that things are beautiful? If you’re a normal person, this is probably not a question you’ve asked yourself. But maybe you have. If not, try to think about it for a second now. For me, and many humans, when I look at a scenic vista, say, a dramatic mountain towering, snow-capped, in the sky, I’m transfixed by it. Totally enraptured. Why is this?
My (well-founded) belief is that the capacity to perceive beauty in things, like all our capacities, evolved in us. There must have been some way that it benefitted us to see things as beautiful. For people, the answer is obvious. We regard (most of us) the opposite sex as beautiful, and this makes sense. It draws us together and helps us procreate. Water may be beautiful to us because we needed an incentive to find it and drink it. Fire mesmerizes us, perhaps to keep us close to the warmth of the flames (though on an evolutionary timeline, humans would not really have had much opportunity for evolution in the time since we began using fire as a source of heat). But why mountains? Why the stars?
It’s an interesting question to consider, and the answer extends even further, to our appreciation for art, music, even the written word. It may have to do with pattern recognition (most of us appreciate symmetry), or utility as I mentioned above. Keats said simply that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”. Perhaps it had something to do with courtship and mate selection. One could imagine men (I say men specifically, given that we are the gender who seeks to win over the other) venturing out and finding a beautiful landscape a short walk away from the primal village. He’d come back to the village and then bring his chosen woman to the area he’d found. She’d, recognizing the beauty, would feel good about him as well, and perhaps they’d end up together. This is, in fact, the strategy of many young men still today.
Whatever the reasons, nearly all of us appreciate beauty in some form, and recognize its presence in our lives. This doesn’t mean that we recognize it all the time, though, and for a great deal of people, myself included, we often forget to appreciate the simple beauty of our lives. Immersed in the numbing waters of routine, we fail to appreciate the sunlight on a warm day, the snow gathered on the branches of trees, even the birds in the park interacting with each other.
When we travel, something shifts in our minds. It is as if they become primed to recognize things that we do not normally see. We are ready for a disruption in our routine, a taste of something that feels new, and for many of us, the novel feeling that is most accessible is the feeling of being in the presence of beauty. Think of the times you’ve traveled, even just to a nearby park or forest for a walk. Even when we are just a bit outside of the normal, we see trees differently, the grass differently, and the effect is much stronger when the very things around us are also much more different. When we visit the beach, a local lake, or a mountain on the other side of the world.
At times we will do extraordinary things in pursuit of beauty. I’ve mentioned on the home page when Odysseus ventured past the Sirens, risking madness or mutiny he had himself tied to the mast of his ship to hear their song. Curiosity, I said was the cause, but that doesn’t fully cover it. Why, after all, do we, as I did two nights ago, attend the symphony? A beautiful noise is as good as a beautiful image, perhaps even more so.
We don’t typically tie ourselves to masts to hear a concert, of course. But why do we travel? A part of it lies in some of the things I’ve talked about before. First, as Carl Sagan has pointed out to us, there simply seems to be a pulling that tugs us towards a new world. “The open road still softly calls”, he wrote in Pale Blue Dot. In fact, Pale Blue Dot opens with a reference to our roots as travelers. We have always been nomadic as a species. Second, on a more individual level, travel allows us to step outside our worlds and into new ones, forcing self-discovery and reflection. Third is beauty. We travel to tap into that ancient instinct which seeks a place in which our rattling, worried minds will be forced to just shut up and take in the view.
The Great Ocean Road
A few days ago I rented a car with a few women who were staying in my hostel, and we took off down the Great Ocean Road near Melbourne. The day began overcast, and we’d woken up early, didn’t know each other very well, and were a little surprised at how expensive the car had been to rent. Add to that the fact that the drive out of the city proper was confusing and half our group was forced to wait a painfully long time to pull over and take a piss. Talk about universal human experiences. Since the age at which we learn that it’s not okay to pee in front of others, or on ourselves, we have all dealt with the agony, and seeming warping of time (which physicists have yet to fully explain), which occurs when one must pee, and yet must wait.
Still, we got on the road, freshly relieved of our urine, and began to take in the sights. They were, for the most part, magnificent. The road follows the coast close-on, and meanders up and down in elevation so that at times you are far above the water, able to see, seemingly, to the edges of the Earth (were it flat. Or is it flat?). At other times, of course, you are close to the beach, and at that narrow angle with the water the sunlight bursts upon it like a thousand versions of itself, blinding you and yet you look on, transfixed, drawn into the rolling shapes of the waves, into the frothing foam of the breakers, that stretch for hundreds of yards, and look like herds of water beasts in the midst of a great charge, drawing a bubbly blanket over the emerald surface of the sea.
At several points we stopped to take pictures, and saw a small portion of the variety of Australian geography in the process. We stopped at a beach at low tide, and I sought out the pools of water that formed in the rocks and were trapped as the tide receded. Small creatures would flit about, concealing themselves in the tiny cavities that presented themselves. More of the life was under our feet, as we guiltily crunched about on the shells that were literally unavoidable in their density, splayed over the rocks like a city.
Another point gave us a view of an endless forest that stretched out to a blue-tinted horizon (at that distance, you’re looking through so much air that part of the light spectrum is actually attenuated out, leaving more blue than the rest). We saw koalas in trees, a large snake, and a plethora of birds. Many of the birds, familiar with tourists driving down the road, came right up to us, hoping for bread. A group of Chinese tourists gave them their fill, and several women had birds perched on their arms and shoulders, taking pictures as they fed them seeds.
The drive to the 12 Apostles took us most of the day. While we drove, me and these three others who I barely knew got to knew each other. It reminded me, strangely, of being on watch in the Navy. When you’re forced to sit with a few strangers for a long period, long enough to get bored, and when most of you don’t have cell phones that get service out here (not me, of course: I’m not a neanderthal, and have Google Fi), you opt, begrudgingly, to actually speak words to one another and maybe share some details about your life.
I won’t share their secrets with you, but I’ll say a quick bit about the group’s dynamic as the day progressed. Initially, we were strangers, and treated each other as strangers. Polite talk, softball, small-talk questions, only the most politically-safe jokes (Trump is safe to ridicule anywhere in the world). By the end of the day, we’d discussed not only some of our greatest secrets (like my secret enjoyment of Tailor Swift’s early music), but also the physical nature of the universe, the multi-faceted nature of history, even the nature of happiness.
Our Common Humanity
Many of you will, perhaps, not have traveled much in their lives. Maybe you won’t ever travel, and that’s fine too. But I wanted to mention that this experience, of rapidly getting to know someone, and in the process growing comfortable with them, is something that should strike us as remarkable. Consider: two tribes meeting each other in the brush, in the early days of our civilization, would have no real compelling reason not to kill each other outright. They would be, after all, competing for resources, and this competition was to the death. Eventually, it was realized that trade was more beneficial than murder, and this general principle holds today in the globalized world. But we, in this car, were not competing for scarce resources. We had formed a sort of coalition, to purchase the rental, but even our choice to take that step of cooperation represented a sort of trust in one another. We came from disparate parts of the world: America, the Netherlands, and Germany, knew nothing about each other but that we all wanted to see this place in the world, and decided therefore to spend a day together. There’s obviously some cultural overlap, but then again, so was there between the great forces that battled in Europe in both World Wars. And I’m sure that if we looked hard enough, we’d find plenty to disagree about and hate each other over. But then, we’d be forced to sit with people whom we hated for several hours, a prospect I think only a strange few (I’ll judge them confidently) enjoy. Instead, we find the things that we mostly agree about. The topics we share an interest in, the experiences we’ve had that resonate with each other. This says something remarkably positive about our global Western civilization. Despite its failings in equality and justice, it preserves a remarkable ability for people to achieve common cause with each other.
I can think of no better way to instill in oneself an idea of the common attributes of humanity. Feeling a sense of common purpose, and common experience, with our fellow humans is, to me, the surest way to avoid the pitfall that have so often plagued our society. Racism, nationalism, the toxic partisan politics that we experience nowadays, all come under considerable strain when we are confronted by the fact that these “other” people in our world are not so much different than us. Now, it wasn’t as if I had some prior hatred of Dutch or German people, but I believe that these interactions serve as almost an inoculation against possible future hatreds. Were I to begin to see Germans as bigots, or the Dutch as warmongers, I would be forced to reconcile that belief with my experience with these humans on this day. If nothing else, it would force me to reflect.
One of the great collateral benefits of travel is that, especially when staying in hostels, these experiences are incredibly common. And as you venture out, you meet many more people than just Germans and the Dutch (though, at this time of the year, they form almost a separate colony here in Australia). I look forward to meeting Vietnamese people, Cambodians, Nepalese, Austrians, Moroccans, Peruvians, during my journeys. I remember an episode years ago in Berlin, playing King’s Cup with the two American friends who had dragged me out there. As we began playing, we were quickly joined by others. Three Australians, two women from Norway, two men from India, three more American women, and probably some others who I’m not remembering. To our collective surprise, everyone knew the rules to this drinking game. I had an almost exact experience in Caye Caulker, years later. There’s almost an epiphany that occurs during these moments, when you find that this thing you do, this game is something that people do in India, in Norway, all over the world.
Of course, there are many ways in which the cultures of us humans are very different as well. And I think it’s both fascinating and important to learn about the cultures of others, and to appreciate them, so long as their values do not conflict with deeply held values of your own. To be clear, I’m talking about bedrock principles that form our society: free speech, equality under the law, due process, freedom of movement, and so on. If people were to argue with me that these principles are no inviolate, I would have difficult not seeing them as misguided at best. Most of the time, just to reassure you, this isn’t the case.
This is why I think it’s so important for young people to travel. I say young people specifically because, first of all, most of the people in these hostels are also young, and it’s helpful to fit into the demographic. I’m not ashamed of myself, but I am considerably older than many of the people here, and it makes it more difficult to relate in some cases. Second, having these experiences relatively early (the sweet spot seems to be about 19. Old enough to be able to be somewhat independent, young enough to be impressionable) allows one to form a open-minded view of the world. I was lucky to be able to travel early, when I was about 21. For most people, traveling later in life doesn’t accomplish much more than stressing them out. By then, they’re already settled in their ways, and are focused more on seeing the sites, taking pictures, or having pre-packaged experiences like bus tours or all-inclusive resort hotels. So if you’re young, get out there. Far too few Americans do, as I’ve heard from nearly all the people who I’ve met in the last several weeks. In fact, I’m the second American I’ve met here, and this is an English-speaking country.
But enough of my ranting and soap-boxing.
The 12 Apostles
After a long day, we reached the 12 Apostles. For those of you who, like me, had never heard of this place, the 12 Apostles are a series of large mountain spires that rise up out of the ocean near tall cliffs in the Southeastern coast of Australia. In the interests of honesty, I think that only 8 of the Apostles remain now, the other 4 having fallen into the sea. This is because of the interesting nature of the mountains themselves. Rising in some cases nearly 150 feet out of the sea, they were carved from the coastline over 10-20 million years by the forces of the water and the wind. The erosion caused by these forces wore away the limestone of the cliffs, creating deep crescent shapes along the coastline. Eventually, the horns of these crescents partially collapsed, leaving spires shooting upward, seemingly independent of the land near them. Looking closely, though, you can see the rings of sedimentary rock, compressed by the heat and pressure within the Earth’s crust before being shoved upward out of the sea to form the coast of Australia. The rings of the spires match exactly the rings on the coast, and seeing that one could imagine the whole great process taking place. Which continues to take place. Adding to the beauty, in my view, is the temporal nature of the 12 Apostles. They appear static, invulnerable, permanent, but they are not. Four have already fallen. As I watched one of them in the bright afternoon sunlight (the weather had improved remarkably from the morning) I saw deep fissures cutting down through it, as the strain of the weight of rock began to overcome the forces holding the spire together. One day, perhaps soon, they will be gone forever. So I’m glad that I saw them while the chance remained.
Of course, there will be pictures of them for as long as humans continue to store things like that. But a picture, as you can see from the poor one that I took, above, does not capture the moment entirely. Pictures, instead, offer merely a hint of a moment. Gone is the strange quietness of the place, broken only by the sounds of people asking politely for others to take pictures, and the slow, steady roar of the waves below. Gone the smell and feeling on one’s face of the salty mist, thrown up by the force of the tide smashing against the stone far beneath. Gone the warmth of the sun, occasionally interrupted by a shot of breeze blowing past. And that’s not even to consider the sight itself. A picture is, by necessity, small, and that shrinkage has a psychological effect, making a thing seem pithy, average, while oneself becomes correspondingly large and important as observer. It fails to capture us.
Standing amongst the Apostles, or in any landscape in which size is such an important factor, changes the feeling considerably. One experiences there the humbling realization of the size of things in our world. First one sees the people standing atop the cliffs, small like insects, with the cliffs stretching so far below them. Then the spires, so huge, hundreds of thousands of people in weight, standing vigil as they have for millions of years. When this process of erosion began, humans were a distant dream on the horizon. Further, the great ocean, stretching seemingly to join the sky at some great distance, and the sky itself, opening into infinity, with the tiny sun blazing as it has for billions of years above us, the great furnace that we know in our minds, but can’t fully conceive, could safely contain 1.3 million Earths inside it. And even that, close, compared to the billions and billions of miles that stretch forever beyond.
The final experience of the day was also cosmic in nature. The drive home took us into darkness, as we had watched the sun set near the Apostles. This far out from the city the light pollution was very low, so we decided to make a stop near a farm. Emerging from the car, and into the sudden silence of the countryside (we’d been playing music rather loudly) we stared upward to see more stars than I’ve seen in years, including the faint blue outline of the belt of stars forming one of the other arms of the Milky Way. We were mostly silent, struck dumb by the beauty of it, as humans have been fascinated by the sight of stars since, I imagine, we could be called human beings. For all the generations of man, we’ve looked up there and wondered. How fitting that during my own personal journey I check back in with those familiar fires that hint of mystery and the unknown.