There are a million thing I need to do to get ready for this trip, and one of them (one that I think is the most important to me getting the most out of my travels and really growing from this trip) is to prepare myself mentally for what is to come. Alain de Botton does a wonderful job in his book, The art of Travel of reminding me that it’s not necessarily the place I’m going to that will have such a great impact on my life but the way I treat the trip itself. While preparing myself for a trip to Paris, It’s been hard not to create these huge expectations of what it will be like and how this incredibly romantic city will change my life forever just because it is the romantic city that it is. I have dreamed of this for years and built up in my mind what it will be like to walk the old cobblestone streets and experience the Parisian culture. How romantic it will be and how much it will change me. But unless I am in the right state of mind while i’m actually there, I won’t take hardly anything away from this trip and I could possibly have a pretty lame time. De Botton gives us in each chapter of The art of Travel, tools for helping us truly see and feel the spaces we inhabit as we travel.
Expectation is the bane of all travel, and the downfall of all relationships really. (And what are we put of this earth for if not to build beautiful relationships with other human beings? So we better figure out how to make them work.) Expectation is what allows our ego to overshadow love and understanding. If I expect Paris to be a certain way, and when I get there and it’s not that way, I will be disappointed because my ego won’t allow for any understanding of why Paris isn’t that way. But If I just desire for Paris to be a certain way without any expectation of it fulfilling my every desire I will be able to just be present and just enjoy the way things are. I’ll allow for differences in what way I viewed the city before I’m actually there to become something much more beautiful.
My biggest expectation at this moment is that everything will be perfect and beautiful in Paris and I will never have a moment of let down or unhappiness. That just isn’t a realistic view of anyplace in the world. No matter how beautiful or romantic. “We are sad at home and blame the weather or the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own either underwrite our joy or condemn us to misery. This explains why people are happy even in Winnipeg and unhappy even in Tahiti” (The art of Travel). It’s not the city itself that will make me happy, but the way I interact with the city. If I chose to not interact with the city and not allow it to teach me I could find myself with a “strong wish to remain in bed and take the next flight home” (The art of Travel).
Looking forward to this trip I hope to allow this journey to open me up to some wonderful internal conversation. De Botton says in his book, “Journeys are the midwives of thought. A great desire of mine is to be sitting at some quaint cafe on a Parisian street corner and have a new and wonderful thought or idea pop into my head. Weather that be an interesting melody or chord progression to use in my music, or some philosophical idea I am reading about in one of my texts to just make sense. What would be really great is that though my travels I would be able to understand or come up with something I would be able to share with you through this blog and though my life and relationships when I get home. I am traveling to this city to try and better understand what makes it’s music unique. Sure I could do a bunch of reading and listening here in my bedroom in Olympia and gain a good understanding of what makes the sound of Paris so unique. But I believe, as well as De Botton, that it’s the journey and the experience of actually being in that place that will stimulate my mind to help me better understand Parisian music.
April 3, 2015 at 11:18 pm
Hello Aaron,
I find several opportunities in your post for me to provide feedback. Feedback that has also helped my own thinking, in asking questions that emerged to me while reading through. So this reply will mostly consist of those questions.
I appreciated your way of summing up de Botton’s effect: “It’s not necessarily the place I’m going to that will have such a great impact on my life, but the way I treat the trip itself” And also, how you tie it in with the idea of high expectations. Yes, it is very difficult NOT to build an idealization of a foreign place, especially with the romanticism of mass media. How can we counteract this? I am quite skeptical of “censoring” and indoctrination, even in counteraction. That is to say, the solution is not to forbid what feeds us these expectations, which spoil what could have been fulfilling journeys. I think the remedy is making sure of DIVERSITY in what representations we entertain ourselves with. If we can’t help but build expectations (which I believe you would be hard pressed TO help), then it’s equally important to entertain other portraits of place as well. I’m not sure if I’m getting anywhere, I’m not a social doctor.
Another focus on your post. You quote him on his “strong wish to remain in bed and take the next flight home” in your last paragraph. My impression from your use of this quote is that de Botton argues it is IMPERATIVE that we interact with the city and allow it to teach us, otherwise we waste the trip (is this paraphrasing of your wording a stretch?). I would disagree that this is his case. Rather, I think what he was trying to get across in that chapter is that, put simply, sometimes we aren’t ready for where we find ourselves, whether we put ourselves there or not. In other words, the trips we make are sometimes untimely, occurring in a period in which we do not have adequate psychological and/or physical preparedness. That in these situations, we can’t blame ourselves as much as we might normally do.
I hope this feedback is useful!
Melo
April 4, 2015 at 12:27 am
I’d like to rephrase, or rather embellish, my last point in my reply (The last paragraph): What I mean is that de Botton is implying that it may be a matter of being prepared with the right questions provided with the right amount of curiosity.
April 5, 2015 at 8:29 pm
Aaron, the realistic approach achieved in your diction and syntax throughout this piece is absolutely lovely. However, I do have several qualms with some of your assertions, firstly being the constant usage of the word “romantic.” It seems to be a main focus in your preconceptions of Paris, but not sure what it means to you. Perhaps if a definition of Romanticism preceded overall piece, then the audience may have an easier time following your train of thought. In addition, I don’t completely agree with the declaration made about travel in the second paragraph. Is “expectation [the] bane of all travel, and the downfall of all relationships really”? You go on to support this argument by stating that you “expect Paris to be a certain way, and when [you] get there and it’s not that way, [you] will be disappointed because [your] ego won’t allow for any understanding of why Paris isn’t that way.” While this definition of expectation is highly applicable in this situation, I would be wary of dashing too much of your expectations and preconceptions if I were in your position. I believe that having high, grandiose expectations can lead to sublime experiences, but that one must also take the time to realize that expectations cannot be facsimiles of reality, nor should we try to hold them side by side.
Summarily, this piece is a pleasure to read and there’s really nothing that could be done to drastically improve it, as it already possesses such a high degree of skill and ability. I look forward to reading future posts about your travels in the future.