Let’s talk about where wanderlust comes from.
Why do we travel? Why do we feel the need to leave our home?
Where are you going and why do you wander so? Here is my personal answer ponered before boarding a flight to Lisbon, Portugal.
Pre-boarding
As I sit in terminal E, Aperol spritz in hand, I observe the other travelers. Destinations, loved ones to get to, and special occasions to attend. Moving back home, or moving away perhaps for the first time, to create a new one. But where was I going?
Yes, I knew the destinations. I made the spread sheet for the itinerary. But where was my wander to? What was the purpose? No new home, no loved ones awaiting me at the airport, no special occasion to attend. Just a deep sentiment and need to exit. The desire to stand on my life from the outside looking in and to crush the comfort zone to get a new perspective. Just departing. Wandering.
I have had this feeling numerous times, more than I can count. If you have found your way to me here, it is because you are also a wanderer. A modern vagabond, if you will. Your purpose to wander may be different from mine, but we are wanderers all the same.
The heavy, disheartening, monotonous daily schedule is not enough for you. You find the need to escape it multiple times a year. You might go for your weekend getaways, cross country road trips, or take flights up and down the eastern seaboard. Or, maybe you go farther.
You crave connection.
Perhaps, the beckoning call of being in a country whose language you can’t speak is what lights the fire in your brain. This fire cannot be extinguished at your “nine-to-five, Monday through Friday.”
Why do we wander? And what’s the word? How can we share this word? How to preach it, magnify it so we cannot only understand these desires but also put them to good use as our tools? These are the questions I ask myself, and they mostly come into mind when I am on the plane.
Control
As I observe other passengers preparing for their big work presentation, comforting their crying infant, going over their itinerary with their spouse, I feel compelled to question where my wander is leading me. In some ways, I believe the wander gives us control over our lives.
It hands the remote back to us to feel like we can actually set dates and times for things to happen the way we want them to. When you travel to Rome, you can buy your tickets (well in advance please!) to the Colosseum and Vatican. As you plan your trip to Brazil, you can decide if you will stay on the coast in Rio de Janeiro or venture into the Amazon.
These are ways we can control our surroundings and make our own rhythm that is not linked to a boss’s schedule, timetable, or deadlines. Traveling is a customizable wander and a plan that gives us more immediate gratification than our long-term life plans.
Of course, most people want to buy a house, reach a certain level at their job, grow as a person, and obtain more knowledge. Awesome, but all that shit takes forever!
Wouldn’t it be nicer to get that instant wander, that instant satisfaction of a good trip planned, that exhilarating feeling of “Holy shit, I pulled it off, I made it from the airport to the Airbnb in Naples alive” ? More on death-defying taxi drives in Naples in another post.
Having said all this, we also know that travel is completely unpredictable. I had a three-week trip to Amsterdam and southern Italy planned for July, but as the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt, and in some cases, end lives, there is no certainty that this trip will take place.
There is no certainty of my control over my itinerary, the destinations, the pit stops. Millions of people are having this same experience.
So, what the fuck was I doing wandering? Pretending to have control, escaping my dumb life, finding someone to watch my cats only to inevitably come home to a full litter box. Cat moms holler if you hear me.
But I was not escaping. The wander is a positive pull toward everything that you are not. It is the insatiable need to go outside of oneself in order to come back with more information about the world.
By venturing outward, you are making your world more whole and your view more expanded, therefore doing the same for your inward self. The wander is a basic human principle that has existed ever since we have.
Human connection
Dating back to pre-historic times, Neanderthals wandered to find new places to hunt and different nature-made establishments to take cover for the night. They were in a constant search of something better and more sustainable in order to maintain a secure as possible life.
The modern human does the same, looking for sustenance and survival in the basic sense with a new desire that has evolved over time of a much deeper need to understand the bigger picture.
Evolution has provided us with the magnificent creation of language and the brilliant ability to communicate verbally and complexly. This has allowed us to develop a closeness with others who speak the same language.
Something I have always been fascinated with is the evolution of language across the world and the fact that despite stemming from the same human race, we have been able to create about 6,000 languages up until this point.
With the same brains and the same basic needs, we have developed this many forms of communication and closeness to each other. The word. This is the positive pull for my wander. This is what I need to know at each destination.
Language is the single most powerful tool that humans have. I need to know how humans work, how the language is used and its influence on the way people live, think, and act with each other. With each wander, there is a different explanation.
The environment and necessities that derive from it are what language development depends on. Whatever humans need to do in the place that they are at will directly affect how language is developed and used.
That’s why I wander so. Where I go doesn’t matter, but I have been ending up in some of the same places over and over again. After slupring down the rest of my Aperol spritz, I leave a fat ass tip for my server, and head over to my gate for the last boarding call.
There are seven hours between me and Lisbon and I know I won’t sleep the entire time. Never can. But I ponder my wander the whole flight, thinking of how I can get the answers, develop a closeness, find the language tribes. How I can preach the word.