“It made you feel very small, very lost…”

“…and yet it was not altogether depressing that feeling. After all, if you were small, the grimy beetle crawled on- which is exactly what you wanted it to do.” As a child Marlow was attracted to the empty places on a map. They drew him towards something glamorous and new. He seems to be pulled towards the unknown, with nothing but the goal of keeping on and watching people. This is the type of traveler introduced in Heart of Darkness, the wanderer and the one that I feel I can identify with the most, although this is a bold statement. True there are others, men who are searching for ivory, power, and control, but there is prevalence of searchers and observers. These are men who are always on the move. There is no final destination in mind, simply a small series of goals which, added up, lead to nothing but the next goal, the next place. Marlow moves on. In Heart of Darkness he is moving towards Kurtz but the travel itself is just as important. Disregarding what he finds when he finally gets to Kurtz, Marlow’s overall search is one of glamour and movement. This is reflected in the “harlequin” whom he meets before Kurtz. “I went a little farther,’ he said ‘then still a little farther- till I had gone so far that I don’t know how I’ll ever get back. Never mind. Plenty time. I can manage.” “He surely wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through.” Marlow is awestruck, as am I.
We have been talking a lot about the reasons people travel. Is there a reason? Is there always a reason? Maybe it is some search for glamour in discovering new things. What the explorers must have felt when they found the new world. This is why I wish to travel. Just to keep going. To observe and try to understand as many things as possible. To learn all that I can. Just to keep going. I do not claim to be this way now, and I know that it is just a romanticized idea, but it brings up a lot of questions regarding those who do devote their lives to moving. In a way are they not settled down as well? Their home is a constant motion, their “centre” moves along with them. I admit that this is my dream, and probably only for the glamour of it, but it seems to appeal to a deep human nature, the same one that drove the explorers. It’s a search through the empty places on a map. “You feel very small, very lost, and yet it [is] not altogether depressing that feeling.”