The Daily: 23 October 2024

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This is one that I don’t actually agree with… and that is interesting because it reveals some conflicting core values. But, no, I don’t look forward to going somewhere. Sometimes, I endure it. I never enjoy it much. And the further the travel, the less I can tolerate it — or afford it. In any case, it was rather easy for me to give up what is an egregious burden on the entire planet.

I don’t like being elsewhere unless it is a place that feels like home, which is not a large number of places. I don’t like changing my routines, being on some imposed schedule, interrupting sleep, eating food that doesn’t agree with me and at a time of day that makes that disagreement even worse (usually late in the evening which further disrupts the sleep). I miss my furry companions, though that was much worse with a dog than with a cat who doesn’t crave or need my constant company. I miss my house and garden. I spend the entire time fretting about all the things that could be going wrong while I’m not there to tend to them. I also fret about the things that might be gloriously right while I’m not there to attend to them either. This is more of a problem in the summer when the garden will offer up daily delights that wither within a few sunsets.

But the worst part is the actual going. My body hates travel. I feel sick in cars and even worse in planes. Trains, however, are strangely neutral. I think this is because they are so bumpy my inner ears are not confused by being stationary yet in motion. They think: Ah, this jostling means we are in motion, so we will not cause the being overlord to vomit up her breakfast. Also, I can get up and walk around on a train, which is a nice distraction, but also sends an unequivocal message to the inner ears: Yes, we are in motion; stop freaking out!

I also hate the process of travel in these days of decaying capitalism. I hate being stuck in a ridiculously uncomfortable seat for hours (again trains rock…). On planes, I hate knowing that my inordinate discomfort is intentional, designed in such a manner so that the maximum number of plane tickets can be sold. I also hate being made to feel embarrassed, a flaccid hippo trying to wedge herself into a tiny space, so that corporations can squeeze a few more potential ticket sales out of every flight. I hate waiting in traffic or at the airport breathing exhaust and worse things. I hate all the many reasons that the trip will prolong this state of misery, often with no progress at all for hours, days. (See yesterday.) Conversely, I hate whizzing by something that I might want to see (trains do not help with that…) while having to stop for rest and lay-overs in sterile and too-bright airports and hotels. I really hate airports and hotels. The smell, the bland uniformity, the hard coldness, and all those people laboring, clearly in misery (I was a hotel maid in college… I know that misery), so that I can be temporarily stowed in this nowhere space — which is itself taking away space from the living world. (I do, however, like the birds that find their way into airport terminals…)

I do not understand why anyone professes to like this nonsense. I think it is mostly because we are conditioned to believe that this miserable waste is desirable entertainment. We are supposed to want to go places. We are inculcated almost from birth to associate going places with pleasure. This is what the right people, those who possess leisure time and expendable wealth, do with their lives. When we don’t enjoy it, as often happens, we blame ourselves. We aren’t doing it right, usually because we don’t have the money or time to travel in style. Which, as far as I can tell, involves first class tickets and accommodations that cost more than a month’s rent for each night. We would enjoy it, if it weren’t for our egregious lack of inherited wealth. (What were our parents thinking…)

But what I object to more than anything is the value we accord to going places. Smart people go places. Losers are stuck in place. Those who leave earn respect and awe as self-made adventurers. Those who stay are ridiculed as backwards, uncultured and provincial (no matter where they are staying). We raise our children to leave and strike out on their own. We laugh at those who find that they can’t survive without a safety net and return to the family basement in ignominy.

And that is the core of going places. It is designed to break up the social systems that shelter us. When we are out there far from home, we are spending money. When we are at home, we are lost to the market. Capitalism figured out long ago that to get people to be the consumers and labor capitalism requires, they must be forced to leave the places where their needs are met, where they are protected and content, where they enjoy life. For a few centuries, this force was direct and blatant – enclosure, slavery, removal from homelands. But whiney Romantic do-gooders shut down the direct tactics, and capitalism had to resort to psychological manipulation. One of its most effective tools is this privilege our culture assigns to going places and the castigation we mete out on anyone who prefers to stay.

We are made to believe that we like going places. Some of us actually do. I find these are the people who have the least responsibility and relationship to their home, people who do not have a home. And, while that immediately calls to mind the folks living under the overpass or down by the river in tents, the people who really have no home, no social ties and duties, no true friends, are the entitled, those who believe the entire world is at their service. These kind of people have no connection to place. All places are equal. No place pulls at them because their center is themselves.

In any case, the rest of us are made to believe that we like going places. It took me a long time to realize that I really don’t. But it wasn’t until I moved to Vermont that I understood just how much pressure is on us to believe that we want to go places — because it lifted. There are still some folks that drone on about their vacation time shares, their personal experience tallies, and their oh-so-important conferences and convocations. But they don’t get quite the adulation that they would elsewhere… because Vermont people are not interested in going places.

This is partly tied to the large number of farmers in this state. Farmers are not big on travel even when they can afford the time and the expense. But it’s also that we have everything we want here. Why bother with the expense and discomfort of going somewhere? It doesn’t get any better anywhere else. And Anywhere Else does not come with family and friends. It’s funny, but the few people who do travel, tend to do so in large groups. The entire social network travels together — apparently, because they can’t stand to be apart.

I know people here who have never been more than a hundred miles from home. I would wager that most of you reading can not even imagine such a rooted life. I know I couldn’t. But now that I am here, I can’t imagine being happy any other way.

I don’t want to go places. I look forward to being home. And I think most people are the same…

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Wednesday Word

for 23 October 2024

gale

If you like, you can respond in the comments below or go visit the All Poetry contest for October, which closed unexpectedly early, meaning I have a full complement of poems to judge now… and pick three that I like. Not my favorite part of this whole endeavor… But the trophies are what keep the kids writing, so…

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©Elizabeth Anker 2024