Wednesday, January 03, 2007

the joy and misery

I read this on the blog of a band I quite like and well, quite liked it.

"Oh the places we've gone! If you are a retiree, escaped convict, or post-college vagabond and are looking for a beautiful city to grow old and die in that seems like its on another planet then I believe Stockholm is the place. But let me burst my own balloon for a minute and tell you what's on the plate; With this European touring lifestyle many friends from back home really think we've got it made. And I ain't gonna lie, it ain't bad to wake up in a new city everyday and explore. You get snippets of people and towns to toss in the memory suitcase. But after a while you start feeling a little weird and well...touristy, even soulless. We have this idea that Europeans are more cultured than Americans and that they view us as having less exposure to the rest of the world. And that is probably true. But do you need to physically go all over the place to gain exposure to a culture? Generally speaking, great thinkers over history didn't travel the world, they stayed home and read. They weren't ignorant. Some people use their travels as escapism, an accomplishment to validate themselves. What I'm getting at here is that there is nothing you can't learn from your living room. Don't sensationalize travel. Where your mind is is more important than where your body is. People tell the best stories about the places they know inside and out. Right? "

3 comments:

Mega N! said...

Man Kate,
He/she's got a point but I'm such a visual/tactile person, an author can spend three pages describing a scene and I'd still feel a little bit out of focus when visualizing.

Also it's harder to interrupt some one when they're traveling than when say they're in the next cubicle over trying to get some work done.

The McFersons said...

it's corny i know, but i still remember being a wee lad and reading that "the person who cannot read is condemned to his own experience". sitting in a hospital today, i've explored (through words) portland, maine, and deepened my explainable fascination with philadelphia. still, that just makes me want to visit those places (yet again, in the case of philly). so, i think, reading first, visiting later. that's when it all comes together for me.

having said that, i feel like taking the family out for a roadie!

k8 said...

i see you also read the article on Portland in USA Today this morning. It made me very sad I never took advantage of living so close.

I am and will continue to be a huge believer in the importance of travel. I am a visual person as well-the Civil War never seemed as real as it did the time I actually stood on a battlefield. But as a writer I am intrigued by the notion that people tell the best stories about the places they know inside and out. It fits right in with one of new year's goals that i will "take better advantage of the city in which i live". If for some reason I ever leave this blessed state I want to make sure I took crazy advantage of it. So whether it's venturing beyond the Orange Curtain to LA or San Diego a little more often or venturing into the surf a few more times, I want better stories to tell about my home. When vistors come I don't want want to take them to mall and the Cheesecake Factory.
Anyway.