Having traveled recently, I made an observation that I wouldn’t have normally made: about the things I carried. It’s strange how you tend to depend on the things that you do. Some are almost necessities, some conveniences, some luxuries, and some just provide the sentimental forces that keep you going. In recent time, those that I can recall with a reasonable amount of vividness, I’ve done three kinds of travels: short ones, lasting a weekend, where you need pretty much your bare necessities, maybe a suit, and some document or the other; then there are the week long ones, where you need not only the previously mentioned stuff but also a little extra, depending on whether the trips made primarily for business or pleasure. And the third kind: when you pack your belongings and move from one residence to another. Of course, there are special circumstances to each of them, which make things even more interesting.
My most interesting, though not my favorite one by far, was when I had to move permanently from not only one house to another but also from one country to another. With a budget defined as being economically very tight, it was time for decisions: what to not let go off. It was tough, and after spending months in mental agony, I prepared myself. I knew my decisions had to be extremely balanced – between logic and emotions. Things that were favoring me were the facts that I hadn’t really spent much on the things that did belong to me and that at the places that I was headed to I would be taken care of. That’s right – places, not a place. There were complications, don’t ask me what.
The day of the travel has arrived; I stand outside the house staring at it, not knowing what to say to it: “Thanks buddy, but I have to move on. Nice knowing you though; we spent some good time together?” No, at that moment you can’t come up with that. Within the numbness you feel all you can come up with is: “Ok, then…”, then try to make haste, lest you lose your mind in the process. Then you turn the other direction to get hit by another shockwave. What is that in front of you: a suitcase, two large boxes, and some carry-on? What happened? Where did everything go? Oh yeah, you dumped some, gave some away, and left some for the landlady to get rid off. You shrug your shoulders, pretend its funny, and move on.
Traveling internationally can be a headache, especially with all the stop-over’s, extra documentation, stamps, etc. involved. Unless you have your priorities straight you’re bound to be doomed. So once the nightmare is over and you’re in the plane, squeezed between two people you know will be snoring within half-an-hour and make the next half-a-day of yours go by hoping that the volume of your personal video went higher – it starts to seep in. You take a deep breath, sink in further into the seat, and let wild thoughts take over your mind. You run the entire three or four month episode inside your head until you come to a screeching halt at the moment you were hit by the thought of the size of your luggage. You built a mental x-ray machine and began screening one piece at a time. A considerable chunk passes by labeled “Books”. That includes all the design and code books you pretty much had memorized once upon a time, some biographies you think you might actually re-read someday soon, and some that you excused yourself from donating because they were so tiny compared to the engineering books. Then, there are the souvenir items collected over the period of time that you were there, which is considered priceless, and tossed in between all that stuff are your clothes, all the ones that you really, really didn’t want to give away. A small portion of your suitcase dedicated to a number of documents that make you ‘you’, legally that is. Then of course, there is the laptop, your dslr, and other electronic devices you consider a part of you anatomy.
These were the things that were on top of the priority list when I had to get rid of everything that was not in the slightest unimportant to me. Therefore, these must be the things of considerable value to me, a part of me I choose not to depart with. Apparently, knowledge and information are on top of my list, followed by memories – things that cannot be re-bought. Then there were the minimum amount of documents needed to prove my existence, which I suppose can be considered important without much debate, and of course my dependence on technology – absolutely crucial was I to maintain my lifestyle. Clothes and common objects of use can always be bought unless I was going on a deserted island of some sort, these things I hold to a degree of importance judged by various factors such as cost, amount of use, and association with something important. These were tough times, and with the strict qualification criteria I had set for them, many did not make it.
So there I conclude: it is in travelling that a person reveals what he cannot leave behind, hence what means most to him, hence making his priorities visible before his mind, hence making his values crystallize, thus establishing him as the person that we may know him to be.
Note to Reader: Over the brief periods that have combined to give form to this essay, I have realized that I have mixed up the ‘I’s’ and the ‘you’s’ beyond the point of effortless corrective editing. I apologize for any mental bumps that you may have had to endure. Also towards the end, the he/him/his has been used to represent any person in general. I mean no discrimination towards the female of the human species.
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