Google (the dog), Tilon and Caren were marveled by the full moon and the silhouette of Kinabalu Mountain.
Dear Travelers,
Many people I know are consumed with wanderlust; some are pursuing it, satisfying their desires of travelling the world—these are the fortunate ones, or the smart ones who are aware of things that matter to them despite whatever situations they’re in; some kept their yearnings hidden, denying while secretly pining to see the lands across the seas—for them life goes on no matter what; and some are still working hard, endlessly saving money (maybe they already have more than enough), hoping that one day they could travel the world to see what they wanted to see, to feel, to experience, and to learn something from wandering about the face of the earth. Yet what does it truly means to travel the world?
I’m sure everyone has his/her subjective meanings of travelling the world. It could be the sense of getting lost in unfamiliar places, to find his/her ‘self’ and to understand it truly. Or perhaps, for the sheer luxurious bliss of spending the wealth they had accumulated for hours of tiresome works, to release and to forget the life they had back in their homes. Some travelers might be looking for answers to their questions, to feed their endless curiosities about the people and the foreign lands they’re on. Whatever that might be, there’s something spiritual about travelling regardless of where a traveler is wandering about.
I do have a desire to travel, but it is not as strong as my desires to write and to read. My wandering mostly lies in my writings and readings—I’m not physically travelling, but spiritually I am, for my soul is fed just like a traveler with his/her satisfied wanderlust.
I have had travelled physically, and yes, it was different from travelling through books and words because everything was real. The thrill of getting lost, the fear, the joy, and the awes that had struck me have different intensities; and there were profound moments along the ways that had shaped me to become the person I am today. One thought that came upon me at this moment, as I’m writing this, is that everybody is a traveler and is travelling whether they know it or not. Because life is a journey. This is a phrase that we often hear and had become a cliché; it had lost its meaning like the horizon we grew up seeing, we had forgotten to “see” and notice its beauty. Only once in a while, our souls would cry for us to see and to notice things that suppose to matter, but were concealed with our phones and other “robots” of the world’s technologies.
Cheryl Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and she’d learned that she had been living in her past and that she was scared of the uncertainty of her future. She forgot about the present, and only when she was done hiking, while she was sitting on the white bench, she noticed the present and how uncontrollable life is: “It was my life,” she said, “like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.”
There's nothing we can do about our past and future, but the present is up to how we want to respond to every second of our lives before our presents turn into history. Life is wild with uncertainties of the future and scars from the past, but that's how it suppose to be; we can only be certain with the "now."
Travelling, whether physically or spiritually, suppose to reveal these things to us because they matter to our souls (at least I think so). But one could only see, notice and learn when he/she wants to.
So, dear travellers of lives, the next time your souls cry out for you to see and to notice things that matter—are you going to open your eyes to “see”?
Love,
Trespassing Traveler