what pascal and nietzsche taught me about my bedroom

my bedroom
In reading this chapter, I was attracted to the idea, put forth by Nietzsche, of making a lot out of a little. Travel has a lot to offer, but it does have its flaws. The criticism that one hears most frequently about travel is that it’s a sort of passive stimulation, in which people (who have a sufficient amount of money) place themselves into a new environment, and allow things to happen to them, for adventures to take them away from themselves. While I don’t necessarily agree with this, I can see how it would encourage that mindset. For me, travel is a very active enterprise, and yet I recognize within it the passivity involved in visiting a foreign culture.

The inclination towards boredom is something that every person has to deal with, and something that I, personally, really reject in myself. Boredom, for me, is a sort of moral failing, representing mental atrophy. No matter where you are, you should always be able to find something interesting, or something worth thinking about. If you can’t, that probably has more to do with you than with your location. Thus, the idea of making a lot out of little.

As for myself, I can’t say that I would prefer to stay in my room, over, say, taking a trip on the Amazon. At the same time, I think that there is something to be said for staying in one’s room, figuratively if not literally. Travel can help us learn how to do this successfully, by rendering the familiar unfamiliar, and by instilling within us the instinct for observation. Just as Ruskin advocated drawing constantly, so as to promote a more complete knowledge of one’s surroundings, the continual feeling of alienation that one deals with abroad can foster a critical approach to one’s surroundings. With the right attitude, a street in New York City, or even in one of the small towns of America, can have as much to offer as any street in Paris.

In the book, Pascal is quoted as saying that “the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” For me, this is totally true; travel, as fun as it is, should not take the place of personal happiness or interests. One should be capable of remaining in one’s room and creating his own happiness, even if he chooses not to.