While the Pandemic is forcing all of us to stay on the carpet at home, we have to deal with our desires instead of just traveling. Or rather: we are allowed to! Because never has the opportunity been better to give in to our dreams.
The beach at Bali, the Scottish Highlands, all of Italy. At the beginning of the year, but especially after a year of pandemic, each and every one of us wish to go far away, to places that promise us great magic. We hope for salvation from the same day over and over again, which we have now gone through more than 365 times in a loop.
"We hope for the redemption of the same day over and over again, which we have now Lived through more than 365 times in a continuous loop."
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A quick look back at history shows that modern holidays are not that old yet. Before the 18th century, much of Western society was unable to travel without a valid reason. At that time, bourgeois northern Europeans set out to, as they said, “to educate themselves.” Rome, Florence and Venice were among the most important destinations for the English and Germans.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, for example, visited Italy 235 years ago in numerous stages during which he never tired of going on excursions to ancient sites and gardens. In his famous diaries he already admitted during his many years of travel that he hopefully could take over a small part of the Italian mentality into his life in Germany.
The desire to travel is fed, among other things, from the longing for a different life. We want to find out what another place can do with us. “What if I lived here?” This is the question we ask ourselves on the beach in Mykonos, while we are standing in front of a huge bowl full of fatty beans and later pulling our stomachs back in front of the hotel mirror.
"What if I lived here?"
Sure: Questioning our lives is always easier when we have freed ourselves from our everyday lives for a moment. And the further away we get, the less we are reminded of life at home. That is also the reason why we are sometimes so angry when we meet compatriots abroad again. It is precisely the incomprehensibility of a foreign language and the exoticism of the food that help us to recognize the outlines of our own cultural horizon. We experience the boundaries that stand between us and the alter ego in a completely different place in the world and later come back a little more satisfied with ourselves than before the start of the trip.
But if we can't travel now, that might be a unique opportunity. We can use this time to explore our longings. For example with the help of films or documentaries. The British call it “armchair traveling”, exploring the world from your own armchair. Undoubtedly, books are best for this because they create the images in our own heads. Because pleasure is always something very individual, it is fed from experiences that we made in our childhood and needs that have accompanied us throughout life. It gets bigger the longer we feed it.
Travel in the head is not in competition with real travel. They have their very own beauty that cannot compete with any real place in the world. Let's enjoy it while we can.
