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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| As a (mostly) solo traveler myself, this article from Business Insider caught my attention. Okay. Mostly I wonder why they bothered to publish this. Is it some sneaky pronatalist propaganda? Shill for the travel industry? Just a way to get eyeballs on the site? For most of my 20s, travel was my whole personality. Huh. Most of us had "struggle to find an entry-level position and not get laid off" personalities in our 20s. So, when I started feeling a little stuck in the summer of last year at almost 29 years old, I did what had always worked before: I packed a bag, booked a one-way ticket, and left. Oh, no. The horror of turning 29. But then, one afternoon, hiking through the jungle, watching scarlet macaws flash across the sky, I felt it: nothing. No awe, no wonder, just a dull, creeping awareness that I'd seen this all before, that I could be anywhere, that none of it was touching me the way it used to. This Just In: people change as they get older. It's not always about "growing up." It's not about "putting away childish things." It's just change. I'm certainly not the person I was in my 20s, and while I can't point to a certain event and say "This was the watershed moment, the point at which my tastes changed," it happened. Perhaps gradually. Now, travel just felt like I was running away. I wasn't discovering new things about myself. I wasn't growing. I wasn't even particularly interested in where I was. Okay, well, I'll give her points for recognizing this and not holding on to old habits just because they're old habits. When I came back to the US, I expected to feel relief. Instead, I felt restless in a way that travel couldn't fix. Yeah, that's what happens when you've changed and you haven't yet figured out what you want to do next. A deeply meaningful life isn't found in constant movement; it's built over time. It's in the friendships that deepen over years, not days. The sense of belonging that grows from showing up again and again. The purpose that comes from committing to something, even when it's not thrilling every moment. Perhaps the problem is looking for meaning when there isn't any. But really... this is not some grand revelation. This is, again, an age thing. It hits some people earlier or later than others, but eventually, I think, most people get there. Travel will always be a part of my life, but I no longer see it as the answer to everything. That's because there is no one answer to everything. No, not even religion. I, too, enjoy travel, but I don't see it as some grand solution to all of life's problems. It's just nice to get out and do something different every now and then. If travel is the only thing you do, the "something different" may be settling down, as it was with this author. When I was a kid, there was a house on my road with a shingle outside proclaiming its name: "Journey's End." I didn't understand that as a kid. I think I do now. Please don't think I'm ragging on this chick. I only question why BI decided to publish this particular piece, which seems more like a blog entry than an opinion piece for a magazine (not that there's anything wrong with blog entries, either). I can't help but think it's some sort of propaganda, but I might be paranoid about that. |
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