Our discussion group shares the Monday lunch slot with Marty’s travel series. It is fitting, then, to devote our next Member Monday (11/21) discussion topic to the question: why travel?

Let’s start with the observation of 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” That is the lead-in quote to our focal essay, another one plucked from the mists of time yet as fresh (with some minor reference updates) and relevant as if it were written today, “Is the Going Still Good?” article link: http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,925448,00.html?artId=925448?contType=article?chn=us

It begs the question, of course, compared to what? Were the motivation primarily education one could make the case the vast library of off- and on-line resources represents a far more efficient means to that end. The sounds and sights of the world may soon become available virtually in 360-degrees. The smell of the local cooking may not be far behind.

Perhaps we can reflect on the aggregate of our respective individual travel experiences and share how we might have been affected in some fundamental way i.e. (per the essay) the mind made peculiarly alive, possibilities excited, and, above all, the discovery of oneself. 

Written accounts may document such transformation. Quoting author Anne Morrow (wife of Charles Lindbergh), “Writing is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.”

Real travel requires genuine connection. Our own Bob Davis recently completed a solo camper trip to reclaim the Ohio of his youth. S.l.o.w d.o.w.n and take a peek at his journal (attached below as Dear Reader-Ohio Journal) — call it an old guy’s “roots tour” a la' Steinbeck’s Travels With Charlie.

It matters not how much, or which parts, you read as each segment serves as a hologram of the whole -- the picture of a soul revealed through travel. Details may seem tedious but that very tedium can evidence a deep connection to a place, to a time. Read it and cherish the notion you are but one degree of separation from the (horse and) buggy factories of century-past Ohio. This is a man who is at peace with — no, intimately connected to — life itself.

Yes, the going can still be good.