The Journey Continues

Troy Hottle

Eyes changed by the experiences of caves (and other Biomes events)  Photo:  Troy Hottle

 
          We traveled around the world and found ourselves at home again. Traveling had become our lives. We moved throughout the world by bus, by train and airplanes in between. We have been rewired to accept differences often without even noticing them, and we had to maintain an elevated level of awareness to fulfill the goal of our global studies. I often felt as though I was standing still while the earth below me was twisting and turning until I found myself in unfamiliar places. We cannot deny the fortune that we were given this opportunity, but we cannot be expected to change the world.  The world has changed us.

           It is a funny thing to go around the world, leaving home further and further behind,  yet at the same time approaching it from the other direction. I guess this might be a philosophical quandary, but really it is just an odd consequence of circumnavigating the globe. At no other time in the history of mankind has global travel been so easy, and even now it remains available only to those who have the means to do it. We have been fortunate. Our trip is guided by our scientific interests in the effects of global warming throughout the world’s ecosystems, yet the entire trip would not have been possible without vast consumption of fossil fuels, just the sort of consumption that has led to the crisis facing the whole earth. . We must be able to justify our trip not only by getting a good grade in the course or getting our essays and journals published but by also experiencing a change in our lifestyles.           
    What will we be expected to say when we get back? What can we say? The experiences we have had are not a part of the experience shared with those who stayed behind at home. I cannot blame them for not understanding what we have gone through, but this round-the-world experience will leave us isolated, unable to effectively share who we have become. Might we fall back into our old ways and lose all we have earned amidst this isolation? I fear this possibility. I am a senior, and I am leaving my undergraduate studies for a new life in a new city, an opportunity to foster my new being and develop my experiences into a new way of life.

           After all we have seen and how dramatically we have been experiencing the world, it will be a wonder if we are able to return and perceive home the same as when we waved bye. Certainly we will see our houses and know them to be our homes, but our eyes have changed. We see aspects to our homes that are unfamiliar, quirks that we failed to notice in our absolute comfort prior to our journey. The scenery, which passed us in a blur, changed constantly but without a reference to our lives at home we had little clue as to how much our experiences were changing us. So how much did we know about our homes or about ourselves before we left? Not much. The journey continues.

Troy Hottle

tahottle at gmail.com

last updated 24 October 2008