I’ve grown older, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop traveling. There’s something enriching about setting out alone, discovering new places, and connecting with people but not just on the surface. Before I go somewhere, I take the time to learn about its history, its society, its ways. That way, when I meet someone, there’s a chance for real connection, not just polite small talk. Because if you only skim the surface, everything can seem familiar,sometimes even too Westernized once u look closer, the uniqueness reveals itself.
There’s also something powerful in returning to a place after many years. When you see how it’s changed, you might begin to understand how societies grow, shift, and evolve. And in doing so, you also begin to see your own world more clearly how it too has changed, often in ways you might not notice from inside your everyday bubble.
Different societies don’t just look different they understand the world differently. And sometimes that can be painful to confront. In Western cultures, individualism often makes it seem logical to live and work far from family, sometimes because your hometown couldn’t offer things. But maybe that wasn’t a failure of the system, maybe that was the system. One that only works when social bonds are weakened, everyones reflexes on human connection and personal sacrifice (grinding) is normalized.
Now, we live in a world where people struggle to understand how others think, vote, feel. A village in Uzbekistan, a town in Sicily, a city in the Midwest, or a neighborhood in New York they’re worlds apart, thats is very very obvious. I’ve been to many of these places, sometimes twice, and they’re not the same planet. And they’re drifting further apart.
But this isn’t new. The ancient Athenians were explorers, traders, thinkers, learners. They brought ideas home and reshaped their world. Yet, with time, even they began to say, "This is how it’s always been. Things are the same" They were resistant to understand the underlying mechanisms, as the world around them shifted. Their knowledge came through a lens that blinded them to the reasons of transformation. And eventually, their dominance faded suddenly and decisively driven by the same forces they could no longer truly understand.
It’s a pattern worth remembering. Because maybe, just maybe, we’re living through something similar today. Seeling the world is an enabler for effective introspection. I avoid the touristy places though, they feel like crowded movie sets.