We should live with the conviction: "I wasn't born for one particular corner: the whole world's my home country". If the truth of that were clear to you, you would not be surprised that the diversity of new surroundings for which, out of weariness of the old, you are constantly heading fails to do you any good. Whichever had came first would have satisfied you if you had believed you were home in all. As it is, instead of traveling you are rambling and drifting, exchanging one place for another when the thing you are looking for, the good life, is available everywhere.Meditating upon such a maxim evokes a sun stroked revelation. The spirit clears its throat, my veins breathe in the wild concrete, and I find myself briefly at home in this strange world.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Battling Wanderlust
In moments when I am stricken ferociously with the itch to move, the curdling desire to travel across the vast lands of earth, bitten by the anxiety for adventure, I turn towards the masterful expertise of Seneca. The Roman politician turned Stoic philosopher offers endless suggestions, maxims, and daily practices of mind and body for those who choose to work towards pursuing the good life. He affirms
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
"... perhaps walking should be called movement, not travel, for one can walk in circles or travel around the world mobilized in a seat, and a certain kind of wanderlust can only be assuaged by the acts of the body itself in motion, not the motion of the car, boat or plane. It is the movement as well as the sights going by that seems to make things happen in the mind, and this is what makes walking ambiguous and endlessly fertile: its is both means and end, travel and destination."
-Rebecca Solnit, wanderlust
Post a Comment