How to Live with a Traveler’s Spirit.
Mist over the Waccamaw river in Bucksport, South Carolina USA. Photo: Carl Kerridge
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber
There is something enchanting about finding yourself surrounded by the unknown — a language you cannot understand, strange cuisine, a curious culture, mysterious traditions and amidst it all, embracing and accepting it for simply… what it is.
This is the gift of travel. The magic that happens when you put your entire life into a backpack with your only valuable possession being a passport to ensure passage back where you think your “reality” lives, only to discover after a few short days that finally, maybe for the first time in your life, you are really living.
Crowds entering the temple inside the Amber Fort Palace, Jaipur, India. Photo: Carl Kerridge
You begin to trust your instincts and settle for nothing less than the sense of adventure of your soul’s call.
Each day brings with it a sense of limitless possibilities and every encounter or connection you make, somehow feels as it if was drawn on your very own personal map of a “how-to” navigate the universe guide.
A lone Lotus flower rises to meet the morning sun, Angkor Wat, Combodia. Photo: Carl Kerridge
Your basic need for human connection is fulfilled effortlessly as you intersect with other travelers, wanderers and locals on your path. Friendships are immediately kindled as you recognize yourself in the other — the one who seeks to find more meaning than what your so-called day to day life back home had to offer, or the raw realization dawning that we are all not really that much different from one another.
While this is the common bond that connects you — the desire behind your eyes is the longing to never again settle for the mundane and the silent vow you make to yourself to carry just an ounce of your experiences back to the world you have created, that is waiting back home.
The world that has not changed. But, one thing you know for sure. You most certainly have.
Lonely look of Ecuadorian girl behind the school fence, Quito, Ecuador. Photo: Carl Kerridge
How do we live with this traveler’s spirit?
“People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes
Can we look at our own culture and our own day to day existence through the lens of the spirited traveler?
Seeing all connections as profoundly important to our own connect-the-dot searching for answers and recognizing the other — no matter who stands before us — as someone who has been put on our path for a reason, so we open to them and allow their very presence to expand our confidence in who we are.
Repeat: Yes we can.
The river Thames is shown with Big Ben in the background, London, England. Photo: Carl Kerridge
Can you make it your daily mantra to see your life through a lens of infinite possibility — directed by some unseen force, but also not controlled to the micro-minute or the 15 minute-increments on your google calendar?
Repeat: Yes we can.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain
Statues on side street of Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: Carl Kerridge
Are you willing to perhaps see your own culture as a mysterious enigma — one that does not define who you are, but rather you choose how much you are willing to let it influence you? From what you eat, to what you wear to the traditions on which you were raised?
Can you imagine yourself as an outsider to all you “think” you have known and begin to cultivate an insatiable curiously as to how much you are willing to let it define you?
Repeat: Yes we can.
Can we meet each and every day as if all we had was what we could carry on our backs and all we truly owned was the memories and experiences we set out to create each and every day?
Repeat: Yes we can.
These and more are all of the questions posed to the traveler the moment the “click” of the passport stamp is issued and she walks beyond the threshold into the unexpected excitement of the unknown. Are we not walking into that same unknown each and every moment of our lives?
Walking monk, Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Photo: Carl Kerridge
“Adventure is a path. Real adventure — self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind — and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins
*****
{Create Adventure}
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