So here it is: my last post from Prague. It is with a heavy heart that I have finally decided to leave this wonderful place I've called home for the past year and a half. It's hands down the best place I've ever lived.
I learned so very much from this little adventure: I came to a fuller understanding of my self, I discovered purpose, I learned about love, loss and life. I learned that for as much as I've had in my life, I've never been happier than when I had less. But all of these things are personal- topics for a fireside conversation or a cup of coffee. For a blog post, what I want to share is the transformative power of travel.
Firstly, I would recommend anyone and everyone to drop what they are doing right now and travel. Unless you are one of those people for whom life is just perfect. If you're doing exactly what you've always wanted and are driven and fulfilled to the core with every day of your life, then you can stay. Sit this one out- you have won the game.
For the rest of us, travel is the single most life-changing experience you can have. BUT!!! Let me define what I mean by travel. Travel is not a two-week vacation jumping city to city with a guidebook. I've never understood the "Go to a place-find the thing-take the picture" mentality. You could just as easily look at pictures of "the thing" from your armchair and most of the time the picture is more inspiring than the experience of actually being there. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to "the thing" and wished I would have just left it at the picture. If you don't travel with the intent of total immersion then you are missing the point entirely. Think of travel like Lewis and Clark thought of travel. Head off into the unknown, not to trace others footsteps, but to make your own. I'm not bashing a two-week city-hopping tour. I've done them before and they can be quite enjoyable. But this is called a vacation. Don't confuse vacation for travel.
Travel forces you to rethink the way you live because you are forced to leave your relied-upon comforts behind- everything from material things to perspectives and assumptions. The more you leave behind, the deeper you get into the unknown, the more you will learn about the world. Think about this: You live a very specific lifestyle. Everyone does. There are so many comforts that you probably honestly think you could not live without- curling irons, hamburgers, peanut butter, hot water, air-conditioning, coffee, 24-hour food service. I bet you laughed at some of those but think about what your life would be like without them. What about slightly more important things: shampoo, hot water, sewage systems, trash collection, central heat, motorized transportation, food distribution. Could you live without these? Because there are people all over the world that live without one, or more, or even all of these things. Of course we all know this: but it's one thing to know and another to understand and experience.
We think intellectually about people who live this way and we empathize- intellectually being the key word. But what we really create is a mental barrier between us and them. A barrier which separates two populations of human beings into what is known and unknown- Us and "other." It is from this ignorance that all of the evil we humans visit upon each other comes from. Racism and genocide are simply an ignorance- a lack of real experiential empathy with a group of "other." We fear what we don't know and even if we intellectually and explicitly demonstrate for the rights of the "others" we probably still fear them deep down in that little part of us we like to try and forget exists.
Life without hot water is pretty miserable- at first. But then you see an entire family around you getting along just fine without it and you think to yourself, "Well, shit. If they can do it I certainly can." Then 3 weeks later you finish up a days' work, fill a bucket with cold water, dump it over your head and don't give it a second thought. Then when you get back home to your hot shower you think, "Do I really need to hang out in a hot shower for 20 minutes when I really only need 3? This feels a little bit wasteful. Maybe I can reel this back a bit." What you've created with this experience is a real experiential empathy with people who live very differently (others) and they become a little less "other."
This is what Mark Twain meant when he wrote that travel destroys ignorance. Real, immersive travel puts you in the shoes of people all around the world living life in such a radically different way and then opens your eyes to the fact that different is neither better nor worse but simply different. This is the only way to build true empathy.
Sit around the table with people speaking a language you don't understand and be humbled when the woman sitting next to you whom you just met keeps translating for you. Maybe you'll be a bit more understanding and empathetic to those trying to make it in America without understanding english.
Sleep in a barracks during harvest season and maybe you'll have a bit more empathy for migrant workers.
Try getting hopelessly lost in the countryside and be humbled by the kindness of one man who goes out of his way to help you find your way even though he doesn't speak English and you're a dirty backpacker. Maybe you'll be kinder to those people in your own country.
Try to get a visa in basically any country and realize that immigrants to the US have it about 100x rougher. Then try to carve out a life for yourself in that place. Be poor. Worry about not being able to make rent next month. Struggle to find a job in a city where you have very few connections. Realize that most of the jobs in this world are filled based on who you know and not on inherent skill or qualification. Be humbled by this experience and then come home and marvel at the fact that we still, as a country, make is as difficult for immigrants to carve out a life as we do.
I'm not saying that you'll get the same out of these experiences as I did. But you'll certainly get some kind of experience, along with new perspectives and new ideas. Your horizons will broaden and your decisions will start to benefit humanity at large rather than simply your little group. Now imagine if the decision-makers around the world each came to the table with this kind of experience. What a world that would be.
