Traveling and Self Education

One of the most amazing parts of traveling is that it exposes you not just to new scenery and different languages, but to world conditions. Once exposed, it is virtually impossible for your heart not to skip a beat and for you to want to do something, to make change, to want to see more and do more in the world. Traveling also has the unique ability to wipe away everything you think you know or the way you think everything might be on a different continent, in a different country, or in a different town. We spend so much of our time theorizing about how things could or should be that we are completely thrown off when reality unveils itself, even if we are correct in some of initial our assumptions. Sometimes I think we have grown ignorant to the uniqueness of our own reality in the United States, and then seem overwhelmingly surprised to find that most of the rest of the world does not live as we do.

What I have learned from my parents, from those around me, from previous travels, and from my time spent in Amman, is what characteristics make a good traveler. A good traveler is not just that person who is able to travel to a new place with as little expectations as possible, but one who is able to view travel as a form of self education. To educate one's self to the fullest extent, he or she must strive for an understanding of the world as it is, regardless of whether that is the world that appears in textbooks, in photos, or anywhere else. Secondly, it is in our nature as Westerners and specifically in my nature as a student in the Western world to, instantly after entering a new country or culture, to try and make sense of it all and then if possible, fix it. It is that instant rationalization that often limits us from seeing the situation in its entirety and for a long enough period of time in order to see what changes have or have not taken place.

It was my intention, within this blog and upon my return to the States to share with those around me all of my experiences, good, bad, and otherwise. I encourage those reading, however, to travel whenever and wherever you can so that you have your own stories to share. It is seeing and living in the other 194 countries around the globe that places us on the path to developing a truly holistic view of the world, and is the only way to wipe away everything we think might be true in order to have it be replaced by that which is.