Curiosity seems like a natural thing when you see babies giggling and following mobiles and playing with simple block toys. They crawl to reach for things, for places they don’t know. It seems so natural to want to learn, we want to know and we want to grow. So when I hear that someone dislikes traveling, I start to question their childhood because traveling is a form of curiosity.
I did not have the luxury to travel as a child. My parents did not have money to stay at hotels or pay for gas to take us far. But that didn’t stop us from doing things. I learnt that traveling didn’t mean hopping on a plane and booking a hotel. It just meant opening your eyes and heart. It’s about seeing the world differently.
Traveling and being curious takes you out of your comfort zone, takes you to a place where imagination becomes reality whether its good or bad. It’s seeking differences, knowledge, and opening doors to the world. It’s s reminder that we don’t know everything. We aren’t the masters and we aren’t slaves. We are just living creatures on a beautiful planet. We should not close the doors to what is just safe but to go beyond. The world would be flat if sailors didn’t sail. The Americas would never know the west without pushing the frontier. We’ve even landed on the moon.
It’s about exploring and understanding how small we are but how collectively, we can make a difference.
No experience will ever be the same as experiencing it through your own skin. Reading, listening, and watching isn’t the same as breathing, touching, and living your life. Life shouldn’t be about just being alive but living a life. This could be your one life and no one could live it for you.
When I get tired of what I see, I start to look at things with new eyes. There is a quote from Marcel Proust, “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” This quote always keeps my surrounding unique and exciting, even my own backyard is like an uncharted land waiting to be discovered by me!
But when I get the chance to travel far, I take it. There’s so much to see and these travels always reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive, safe, and living a free life. They also reaffirm my love of home, a place I can call my anchor when I’m tired and weary from a journey that has opened my eyes to the vastness of the world and a breadth of people who carry with them history and culture of hundreds of years.