I have been reading Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel and I somehow find the following excerpt quite fitting and "spot on" regarding how I have been feeling for quite some time since my return back to Hong Kong.
Charles Baudelaire [has a] lifelong ambivalence towards travel ... No sooner had he returned to Paris from his Mauritian trip than he began to dream once again of going somewhere else. Nothing, 'Life is a hospital in which every patient is obsessed with changing beds: this one wants to suffer in front of the radiator, and that one thinks he'd get better if he was by the window, ... [I]t always seems to me that I'll be well where I am not and this question of moving is one that I am forever entertaining with my soul.' ... The destination was not really the point. The true desire was to get away -- to go, as he concluded, 'anywhere! anywhere! so long as it is out of the world!' --- The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton, p31.
I no longer think this way, I am over that phase and turned over a new leaf; but I am certain that many out there can still relate to. I now understand that this is not the right away to life or anything for that matter. One should make the most out of your current state and move forward with hope, strength and determination.
2 comments:
"Life is a hospital in which every patient is obsessed with changing beds". I think this is closer to how we like changing flats. bigger, higher, sea view, then the ultimate sea view (victoria harbour) :)
i do think that traveling gives me a break from my every day life, but it doesn't necessarily mean that i hate my real life, i always look forward to be back after a nice break :D
@Rita, yes indeed, aside from the fact that I now plan my travel around FOOD, it is always good to get away once in a while, take a nice break, enjoy a different environment, different cultures and recharge the body (and mind of course) before returning to the real life (and start planning for the next trip!) :)
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