There’s this thing that usually happens to me when I’m about to go on a trip. It’s usually more pronounced when I’m going somewhere I’ve never been. The day, or night before, there’s this wave of Am I really going here that comes over me. Some people recognize this as a small level of anxiety, others refer to it as the nerves. I have another theory. It’s your mind coming to the understanding that something novel is about to happen and that a higher level of detail and attention must be taken. I believe that your brain is an amazing organ. It learns to work as efficiently as possible. When things are status quo, it begins to run on what can be effectively called autopilot. The day-to-day activities easily fade into the background of your mind. The brain does not need full processing power to do what you’re accustomed of doing on the regular. What it does need full processing power for is the novel senses you’re about to experience. It needs to be alert. It needs to be aware of dangers but also be prepared to store brand new memories. It’s quite often why individuals relate travel to as an awakening of the soul, because essentially, that’s how it feels.
Waiting in Dallas to get on my flight to Chicago this morning, the ramp agents drove their tugs across to the apron where a few aircrafts were parked overnight. The morning air was cold and crisp but not to the point of being a nuisance and the sun was out to make sure of that. As the agents hooked the aircraft and pulled it over to the gate at the terminal, a few kids, no older than 3 or 4, quickly ran up to the floor-to-ceiling windows and pressed their small noses against the glass. The excitement was contagious to anyone with a heart and at that moment, I finally understood what I always feel a few days before travel. It was child-like wonder. You see, children experience this more frequently than adults. When they are young, they haven’t experienced a lot. Almost every experience for them is novel and as a result, they express emotions of excitement. It’s why many adults can go on with exquisite details about things that happen decades ago, when they were a child. The brain has an amazing way of understanding when something is new and filing it away in a special part of your brain that’s engrained with forever ink.
Pursing child-like wonder on a regular basis may not be realistic or sustainable for most, but it’s important we never downplay its importance. In all technicalities, life is just a stream of seconds turning into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, days into months, months into years. This is what we recognize as time. But time, like air and water erodes. It breaks us down. Little by little, like a house keeper going through a mansion turning off each light until the last one is met. So, it’s always good to reminder to remember what Confucius said, “Every man has two lives, and the second one starts when he realizes he has just one.”
la vie en rose,
Daviel