The Importance of Travel

As a Fellow at University College, Durham, my board provides me the opportunity to eat in the castle dining hall--breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Last night was our first formal dinner, gown and all.  quick fantastic!!  more on that later.  Monday of my second week in Durham was my first time going to table in castle.  Prior to that i would wake up most mornings feeling a bit down and lonely, like a outsider living alongside of but not included in the world in which i reside.


Now, however, going to table each day changes everything.  Daily i go to eat and meet new faculty--someone in history, a philosopher, a geographer, a classicist, a student working on her doctorate in medieval cartography, etc.  With each conversation I become more and more part of the community here, less a stranger and more a part of things.

As i go through this transformation, which I have done in other countries, something very interesting happens.  As someone said to me today, travel often does not so much reveal to you another country as much as it reveals (brings into sharp relief)  the place from where you come.  It's sort of the idea that all histories are histories of the present; or, as Foucault said, going somewhere else (intellectually, culturally, or even through fiction or the movies) let's us see better and therefore get away from ourselves more easily.  Traveling does this in a very physical, viceral way.

However, there is a trick to it.  One must be willing to become something else.  I have learned, while traveling, to refrain from assertion.  Here is what I mean.  I do not walk around or into conversations ready to assert who I am, what I think, what I see, what I understand--notice all the "I's"?  Instead, i (lower case i) let other people talk; i ask them lots of questions; i ask them about their communities, their work, their lives, their customs--notice the words, them, they, their?  People are people, and when they find you are genuinly interested in them, they will talk to you, or at least that is my experience.  (Of course, one never fails to run into the daily wretch--but that is a point for another day.  As family and friends know, i am working on my grumpy, middle-aged man attitude--yes, Fred, I am taking my medicine. ha!)

As a sociologist I also absolutely love to ask people what they think about the states and our politics, cultures, oddities, slang, etc--particularly if they have traveled to the states.  People are generally a bit nervous to offer their views on your country--as I am careful when expressing what I see about their country to them.  However, if they see you are open to things; not falling back into your "I" but have an open "eye;" then you get into all sorts of interesting conversations--and that is when i find the real opportunity for exchange and learning takes place. 

As a side note, I have to say that, throughout Europe and, in particular, the UK, I am absolutely stunned by how many people know about Ohio, Cleveland, Case Western Reserve, Ohio State and its football (American football, that is) and Kent State University.  Wow!  very cool.

So, what have I learned from all of this?  Most important, for me, is the value of a subtle mind.  The world is not black and white or any one particular color; instead, it is a magnificently varied palette of endless colors and shades of grey, and only a mind not stuck in a particular color or a black/white view of the world can see this--this is what travel reveals to me.  And when you do this, when you see the world in all its color, wow does everything become beautiful!