Why it’s worth it (Comments: 1)

Sometimes, when I’m writing a piece about one of my bike trips, I think, “What’s the point? Other people have already been there. They’ve already taken the pictures and written books about this or that place. Why should I?”

I was thinking that earlier this evening when writing the “Riding With Frederick Douglass” entry. Then I read this brilliant review at World Hum, a travel site I really dig. I’d like to just give you a bit of it, and encourage you to read the rest:

Travel is not a passive experience. Travel is not something we get done to us, like a haircut or a massage. Travel is not something out there that we find on the road.

The trip of a lifetime comes as much from inside as it does from outside. What makes a trip life changing is partly the place, but equally what we bring to to that place: passion, curiosity, knowledge, openness. It is the people we meet and how our experience seeps into our bones. Good travel is life-changing travel. But good travel is a creative act, a fusion of the traveler and the world.

So instead of trying to rack up trips, of trying to get as close to 1,000 as you can, instead of trying to see every place on earth before you die, I say go for for quality instead of quantity. Pick one place you think you’d love and go there completely. Read its novels and newspapers and history. Stay long enough to get under its skin, and let it get under yours. Go there and really try be there.

You could try to see 1,000 places, but why would you, when all it takes to make your life worth living is one.

While this isn’t exactly on the same topic, the idea of having a personal relationship with travel is relevant to my question: “Why bother?” I bother because although other people may have been to a place, their impressions and reactions are their own, not mine. My worldview, my mode of transportation, or just different weather conditions on the day I’m there can greatly influence the way I perceive each destination. Thousands of people have taken pictures of the statue of Frederick Douglass in Highland Park. I like to think that doing that same thing in the context of this blog about cycling and cycling advocacy puts a slightly different spin on the images. Placed next to a Rochesterian who tried to change the entire nation, the efforts of Team RocBike are small but part of a meaningful local tradition of progressive change.

So why bother? Because it’s worth it.

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