He says this too often himself. So when his traveling partner recently said, “I’ve never really been there before,” it struck a chord. Of course he was referring to various travel locations yet to be pinned to the proverbial map. But more importantly, he highlighted a reality that we all should own up to…. that so often we visit a certain local without due exploration. Some of you may be even thinking that you drove across a State, and wonder if you can claim to have “been there,”…really?
However, he challenges this notion with the concept of “been there,” as in being present. Perhaps it is not a matter of time spent, sites seen, states crossed, or ranges traversed (although he does have an appetite for accomplishing the latter). Rather, it is a state of mind that forms the allure of travel. Not time, not space, but mindful movement.
This must be accurate, evidenced by the reality that we can only be in one place at a time and never in all places in our time. So we live many days dreaming of the road, often living vicariously through those we read about, those stepping out, “into the wild.”
It makes him think of Lawrence of Arabia. Reading up, he notes the audacity of Lawrence to act out his dream once released from the dreary mapping office. Possibly unprepared, notably under skilled, motivated by sheer madness for adventure, he began to live out the daydreams of his mind. His mental preparation was all he required. For example, T.E Lawrence writes in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, “All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
Act out. Make it possible.
djs
