Blandly Afraid

Sometimes, like now, I feel a very strong urge to run away to an exciting foreign country like Paris or China. I would sell all my belongings, take out all my savings and then fly off to a strange part of the world with no place to stay in, no money to spend, and no plans about anything. It would be The Great Adventure Of My Life. I would probably die of cold or starvation but it would all be so fun and so reckless that I bet I wouldn’t even know what hit me.

I wish today was like the past when people travelled in ships without passports. All they would bring are a few belongings like their clothes (no toothbrushes and facial wash of course) and underwear, a loaf of bread and a slice of cheese. They would pay for passage on frail wooden ships that may sink without warning, that will probably not take them to the place they intend to reach. They would smell the salty sea air and retch as the planks rattled and creaked on top of a rolling sea. They would probably die, but they would have lived—they’ve had The Great Adventure Of Their Lives, on board a crickety ship with no toothbrush, no insurance and no SMS.

I wonder how it’s like to live in the past, in a time of high adventure and exploration. Back then, if you wanted to know things, you traveled to experience them. You go to a small country halfway around the world to see how the natives worshipped their crude god. You go to Paris to see art, Amsterdam to smoke pot, Germany to learn philosophy, China to harvest opium, Japan to see the samurai, India to eat chapati, America to stake unclaimed land. You travel on ships, horses, donkeys, oxen, and/or on foot. You worry about pirates on sea, brigands on land, and disease everywhere. Imagine that. Imagine all that.

Now, well, everything is bland and ascetic. Most of the planet has been discovered and explored and the parts that haven’t been under scrutiny yet can be found by anyone with a decent internet connection through Google Earth. If you want to know something, you go online, inside your house. There is no more adventure as the risks have been drastically decreased with the invention of disinfectants, penicillin, and more stringent laws. We live in times that are no less turbulent from the past and yet we are safer and thus, more docile.

The fire has gone out and I’m afraid it might have happened to me.