"Only the Young"

Only The Young

“That’s what you want to do. Travel while you’re young. Mother and I always wanted to get over, but we had to wait a while” (91).

A man speaks the above words to Bill and Jake while on the train from Gare d’Orsay to Pamplona, Spain. The Sun Also Rises follows members of the Lost Generation of the 1920s. The passenger’s advice to protagonist Jake and his friend Bill is ironic: are Jake and Bill really taking advantage of all life’s opportunities, or trying to escape the pain of past experience? Indeed, Jake, Brett, Bill and Robert appear to be living glamorous, adventurous lives, but are they discovering themselves, or merely new lands? Are the two synonymous? Is it possible to travel everywhere but inside?

In class we have discussed the various motives people have for travelling: for social approval, to gain new perspective through observing different lifestyles, and to find a deeper meaning or purpose by dealing with uncomfortable or unfamiliar circumstances. As a young person myself, I know the hunger for self-discovery and awareness, and I have been told that this hunger is much more acute during the teens and twenties than later in life. One would hope that by the time one makes a commitment to a steady job, a family, and other such responsibilities, one knows who one is (though this is not always the case). But as young people, we can afford to get lost, to explore, to waste time and energy. In “Only the Young,” one of my favorite Journey songs, Steve Perry sings,

“Only the young can say

They’re free to fly away

Sharing the same desires

Burnin’ like wildfire”

So is traveling best experienced as a young person? Or are we too busy trying to figure ourselves out to appreciate and experience the beauty of the new place we are in? Do those who travel to enrich themselves rather than find themselves have a more valuable, authentic experience of a place? I think not. I don’t believe that we ever stop learning, about the world or ourselves. Travelers need not be of a certain age, but of a certain open mindset and a willingness to learn. I know a good many adults who wish that they had traveled more in their youth. I hope to take advantage of every travel opportunity I have. I see no reason to put off the opportunities one wants most to grasp. Indeed, “travel while you’re young” is sound advice. But let us not travel now out of fear of future regret. Let us travel because we are small and the world is big.