Psychiatrists, politicians, tyrants are forever assuring us that the wandering life is an aberrant form of behaviour: a neurosis; a form of unfulfilled sexual longing; a sickness which, in the interests of civilisation, must be suppressed.
Nazi propagandists claimed that gipsies and Jews - peoples with wandering in their genes - could find no place in a stable Reich.
Yet, in the East, they still preserve the once universal concept: that wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.
-from The Songlines, written by Bruce Chatwin

It's an interesting idea! Chatwin spends much of 'The Songlines' discussing the idea of a wandering life and going so far as describing the settled life as the downfall of man. Man, he claims, must keep moving, or fall prey to a doomed life. There is, inherently, in us an urge to wander, to explore, to walk. Movement keeps us sane, it keeps us grounded, understanding of our place in the world.

I agree with this sentiment. I myself feel the urge to move, to travel and explore new places. It doesn't have to be exotic. I don't necessarily need to travel to far-away places to stay sane, although those trips definitely create a lightness in my heart, a feeling of invigoration. No, to stay sane, I just have to keep the scenery a little different. Change is good, moving change is better. To keep myself together, I just need to walk outside, take a new path, see the world unfold in front of my eyes in a new way. Look at something previously unseen.

It's the walls of our comfortable living that drain the life from the soul. Being inside a concrete bunker, with the artificial fluorescent lighting and re-purified vented air, is the downfall of man.
- posted by the Tourist @ 02:17UTC - want to