Traveling – I like it

I am at the airport, whiling away time until my connecting flight. First, I started working, so I can get caught up on at least one of the million things I am behind on. But this is a long layover and I am getting tired. This is a common feature during my travels, I can never work for very long irrespective of how many things I absolutely need to get done in the immediate future. So, I thought I will stop and ask myself why that is.

I love traveling. Not just going places and seeing things but the actual act of getting to the various places. I discovered this on one of my never ending transatlantic flights a few years back. I hate these flights for different reasons, all that sitting makes my back hurt and invariably my nose starts to bleed from the dry air. But I like them for they are a break from routine. You are isolated in this aluminum tin 30000 feet up in the air, no way you can do anything about it till you come back to terra firma.

What this affords a restless person like me is the time to just be with my thoughts with the urge to do the million things that are up in the air at any given time in my life easily suppressed. I love that. The luxury of just being, that everyday living never affords you. This is because if you are at home or your office and in a “just be” state, then you are going to be feeling guilty at the same time for not doing the things you are supposed to be doing.

But as I get older, the “just be” feeling is getting corrupted even when I travel, as most of my work now just requires my laptop and some pen and paper and so I don’t have the excuses I had earlier in life (namely, need for books, reference papers, internet etc) for not working at airports or on planes. So, now my new mantra is my favorite form of traveling is driving. While driving, you cannot expect me to be using my laptop would you? So back to guilt free just being!!

I like traveling so much, that I even thought half way through grad school that I should just give up grad school (that was not going so well at that time) and become a traveling sales “person” of some kind. Simple life, and all the traveling you would ever want to do. Oh! I really should have followed through with that instinct, should I not?:)).