Wanderlust
Mark Manson, writing on a transatlantic flight, on what drives constant travel, and what it can and can't give you.
Running from and running toward
People say those with wanderlust are either searching for something that doesn't exist or running from something they can't escape. Manson says it's always both, and that's true of everyone. It's just more obvious when your life is organised around flight itineraries.
Coming home
His trips home to the US are bittersweet: reverse culture shock at the oversized portions, the cars, the traffic, the suburbs, the empty politeness, the advertising and the sense of entitlement (his own included), mixed with the warmth of old friends, family and favourite food.
Christopher Hitchens advised visiting somewhere less fortunate than yourself each year, because it keeps you from going soft. Manson takes "soft" to mean complacent: nothing to look forward to, nothing to move on from.
The problem with wanderlust
Like any purely external pleasure, travel has diminishing returns. The more places you see, the less any one place satisfies; yesterday's exotic becomes today's routine. It works like an addiction: you need more and more.
But travel also teaches you that people are much the same everywhere, and that joy and relationships don't depend on location. The reward has to be the journey itself, the dull airport waits as much as the famous monuments.
The attitude that matters
Constant travel isn't a treadmill, he argues. It's more like a race where the finish line keeps moving: you never reach it, but you definitely get somewhere. What counts is the attitude: a hunger for the new and a commitment to being better each day. You can pack that in any suitcase.
"Wherever you go, there you are." You can't escape yourself, and you can't "find" yourself either. You just are. So live with the opposite of complacency: keep running away and running toward, in a way that reminds you you're alive.
See also
- Being Special Isn’t So Special
- Why Some Dreams Should Not Be Pursued
- Find What You Love
- 10 Life Lessons I Learned from Surviving My 20s
Summary of an essay by Mark Manson (markmanson.net).