Wanderlust: Am I running away from something?

Because I can't take you seriously
with all that Kool-Aid on yo' face...

Hey, people. We're gonna get a little heavy this week. Just a little. We're going to talk about wanderlust and its psychological underpinnings. I mean, I have to at some point: It's the namesake of this blog's URL.

Let's start by quoting some interesting stuff I read on Wikipedia's "wanderlust" article:

Wanderlust may be driven by the desire to escape and leave behind depressive feelings of guilt, and has been linked to bipolar disorder in the periodicity of the attacks. Or it may reflect an intense urge for self-development by experiencing the unknown, confronting unforeseen challenges, getting to know unfamiliar cultures, ways of life and behaviours.
In adolescence, dissatisfaction with the restrictions of home and locality may also fuel the desire to travel.

Interesting, right? And as one of the affected, I have to wonder: Does this apply to me? Let's start with the easy part. Yes, in my adolescence I was dissatisfied with my home and locality. This is no secret. As a gay, liberal, Pagan in Indiana, it doesn't take much to explain how out of sync I was with so many people around me. I also think that if I weren't so dissatisfied, I wouldn't have moved to New York at the tender age of seventeen. Considering I left my adolescence behind ten years ago and I'm pretty much as over it as I can get, I'm not sure that applies to me beyond mere coincidence. Besides, what person wouldn't say they were dissatisfied with their "home and locality" in their childhood? I'm not sure it's that unique.

Being chased by the "depressive feelings of guilt" monster?

Now, what I do find interesting is this: It's both possibly an attempt to run away from "depressive feelings of guilt" but also "reflects an intense urge of self-development." I've had a few people in life who I trust and whose opinions I value posit that perhaps I am running away from something. And maybe they're right. The only problem is I can't think of what that would be really. Perhaps it's the hard city life of living in one of the most expensive lands in all the land, New York City? If that's it, sure, I'm doing that, but once the shine wears off from living here, which it will do after ten years, why stay? Unless you're making theatre or a lot of money (I'm doing neither), there's not really any point for the needless struggle. I don't really think this is what they're talking about though.

But, let's pretend I am running away from some sort of emotional issue. I think this might be the symptom and the cure all at once. Why? Well, the second part, of course! Could these intense urges for self-development be the kind of thing that someone running away from their feelings might need? If you're having trouble accepting something about yourself, going through the trials by fire collectively known as "culture shock" might be just the thing to help you figure out what to like about yourself, to develop a positive sense of self that can help you face the things about yourself that you feel unable to face. The challenges of culture shock are really internal challenges of adaptation and flexibility masked as external challenges. It's about becoming a more flexible, open, and accepting person, and guess what: That applies to your own self just as much as to anything else!. It's interesting that if you're doing it for the right reasons, then this can be the thing that helps you through the problem that causes it to begin with.

I, however, like to believe that I'm not running away, but it's undeniable that I have an intense urge for self-development. Hell, I have an intense urge for career development. There's a lot of solid reasons why I'm leaving the country and taking this amazing opportunity, but I wouldn't be so motivated if I didn't think that the world didn't have a lot to show me, to show all of us who are willing to go see it. It's only by leaving your comfort zone that you really see who you are as a person. It's then that your mettle is tested, and tests--the kind that aren't graded--can be some of the best learning experiences. Like I talked in my previous post, I don't expect it to be easy, but it will undoubtedly be rewarding.

By the way, you should check out the Wikipedia article about wanderlust for more interesting tidbits about the phenomenon from the etymology of the term to how its view in sociology. It's a short but nice read!

Songs of Travel and Searching

To tease next week's post about the psychology of wanderlust, here's some songs about travel... Enjoy.

(Videos = hard)(Restarting blog = good)

So, welcome back for some of you, and welcome for the first time to others. As you may or may not remember, this blog used to be a chronicle of my six months studying abroad in Spain. It consisted mostly of videos I would make talking about my experiences and recording some things I would see around Madrid. I abandoned the blog before leaving Madrid because, well, as it turns out videos are really, really hard. Not just for me to conceptualize and execute but apparently also on my computer, which started emitting a sound that could be called nothing other than a death rattle and was destined to survive only about four more months.

Photo of me at work editing a video

Videos are also time consuming. It started to become obvious to me that all the time I spent compiling shots, editing them together, and rendering the video into formats that could be used by your average internet voyager, I could really be out making the most of the time abroad. I actually hated taking as many pictures and videos as I did back in Europe because I think they destroy the beauty of—hold on a second while a take a picture—What was I saying? Oh right, the beauty of the moment. But I desperately wanted to share everything with friends and family back home who I knew would never get the time or opportunity to leave the country. I think one of the biggest problems with the culture of the United States today is that no one is leaving it. I don't mean permanently, but the globalization of our planet is inescapable and it's much better having at least a vague idea of what's out there than growing to fear it as the unknown, a fear which others will often use to manipulate to their own ends. But I digress.

You, or we, should probably get used to that though. The whole digression thing. This unfortunately won't be the last time.

I'm writing this on a train. It's a pretty magical thing. Not only do all the workers seem like happy and pleasant people, you can look out the windows to see something interesting at any point, and I can only feel like this is a wonderful cosmic moment: to be writing about traveling while traveling, to be in motion while writing about being in motion.

See I did it again.

 In any case, I'm reviving this blog again because I found out (after a long and tortuous wait that I'll talk about next post) that I was selected for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant to Colombia. I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog about linguistics and multi-multiculturalism for some time, and this seemed like a good excuse to do it. I plan to be a bit nomadic for the next couple years (with any luck I'll be able to write some interesting stories about being in France, Japan, and hopefully back in Spain over the next couple years), so you can expect all sorts of global tidbits and misadventures. And though I may not be doing too much in the way of videos anymore, I do plan to write and add a few pictures to make up for whatever boring moments come along in a post because everyone likes pictures. 

Beautiful