What About You, Why are
You So Different?
[Vigan] photo by Clare
Amador © 2007 |
It was a question no
one has ever asked, until one cloudy afternoon in
Banaue, my travel buddy did.
We were talking about the seeming absence
of wanderlust among Filipinos.*
Wanderlust - itchy feet, having an insatiable desire
to travel – to wander, explore, and to discover
all things that you don’t know in every nook
and cranny of
your desired space – this insistence in your
soul that will not tire of just… traveling;
it is that unexplainable want to escape -
to be away from your rooted community only to return
as a better person – or maybe not to return
at all.
It felt like I was being asked who I was existentially,
what my purpose is and why I do what I do. I never
expected anyone would ask why I love to travel.
I’ve always thought people took it as it is,
and I only knew that I was restless and that I am
happiest on the road.
Growing up, there was this gnawing restlessness
inside me, like a hollow space that couldn’t
be filled by my everyday life and my usual out-of-town
trips. I needed to escape. I needed to be free.
George Santayana wrote in Philosophy of Travel,
we "need sometimes to escape into open solitudes,
into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running
into some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge
of life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled
to work desperately for a moment at no matter what."
It was exactly this need that propelled me to set
out and just go.
[Cape Bojeador Lighthouse]
Photo by Teddie Rose Mateo © 2007
Hence I took every opportunity to travel –
invitations to other provinces, simple explorations
around my hometown, photo trips to Quiapo and old
Manila, my job assignments and whatever trip I could
afford with my meager budget. All in the name of
freedom, of escape, of discovery – of being
independent and facing the unknown.
In each place went to, I observed how life was
lived, loved how people smiled and greeted, then
wondered how life was like before and what it could
be. My active imagination and enthusiasm, further
fueled by books, made life a big adventure
and I, this excited kid riding it. There
is just so much beauty, so many things to learn
and so many places to go and people to meet.
In all the time I watched the setting sun in different
parts of the country, I gazed in wonder and in love.
I realized for thousands of times – we are
a beautiful people in a beautiful country. If only
the majority could see past the crazy drivers, the
noisy hawkers, the huge potholes and the even crazier
showbiz politics. I realized how much it
enlivens me as a Filipino to see the charm of my
country and understand my people from one town to
the next.
If one could zero in on the simple life of a farmer
and how hard he works for a living – it leaves
you to wonder how far you’ve gone to help
this farmer make a better life or if you have actually
done something that contributes to this country's
collective...
Travel does wake one to "see the world
clearly and yet, feel it truly."
[Underground River, Palawan]
Photo by Jason Marett © 2005
I remember clearly how close to tears I was when
I finally saw the Underground River and the Chocolate
Hills. My emotions were echoed by my friend who
exclaimed, "Pare! Noon sa libro ko lang
ito nakikita! Ngayon nandito na ako!" (Hey!
I’ve only seen this in books but now I’m
actually here and seeing the real thing!). It was
thrilling, as if we have discovered the lost gold
of Yamashita or even, as if we were explorers who
discovered our own new world.
It is exactly this kind of openness and discovery
that most of us lack. It is this wonder
that should empower us to become responsible for
our everyday decisions, to become more
socially and environmentally aware; it is this joy
that should drive us to move forward and have pride
of place – and a pride of race.
Pico Iyer said in Why We Travel that "the
sovereign freedom of traveling comes from the fact
that it whirls you around and turns you upside down,
and stands everything you took for granted on its
head" – and for one who has lived in this
country for years, to travel is one way
to see the beauty of this "home" that we seem to
take for granted, worse, remain unnoticed all this
time.
[Taal Town] Photo by Karlo
de Leon © 2005
It’s been said that the real voyage
of discovery is not seeing new places but in seeing
with new eyes. In the midst of all the
crises and brain drain, this new pair of eyes is
what we are in dire need of – for our citizens
to explore this country and eventually find their
way back to their old lives reborn.
"We travel, initially," Iyer notes, "to lose ourselves;
and we travel next to find ourselves… …and
if travel is like love, it is in the end, mostly
because it’s a heightened state of awareness,
in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by
familiarity and ready to be transformed."
Travel for me is a passion – it is
not merely a "want" but a life. And though
I cannot generalize the presence of wanderlust in
my countrymen (and women!), I can at least encourage
them to try one or more adventures – to lose
their selves in their homeland and eventually find
meaning and beauty in this place within its borders.
More importantly, in themselves.
Text by Clare Amador © 2006
*Through YTRiP, we have met so many Filipinos who
have - not just wanderlust - but the genuine interest
in travel and nation-building. We hope this is the
beginning of real travel for change, of real love
for this country.
