3. de Botton (ch. 1-3)

Florence

What I have noticed most and what I believe de Botton has purposely repeated is the idea that the act, or even the art, of traveling is not simply focused on the destination, but rather the notion of escaping our daily lives. The person we may be on a day to day basis can get lost, become immersed in the freedom that exists when traveling, and is allowed to adopt characteristics of a new culture, at least temporarily. Possibly my favorite theory or quote that de Botton suggests is that travel brings out one’s uninhibited happiness: “If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest- in all its ardour and paradoxes- than our travels.” Furthermore, as I hope to achieve during my stay in Florence, de Botton suggests that traveling allows for a deeper understanding of self while seeking out new places and the reasons why we travel there. The anticipation that exists before one travels and becomes acquainted with a new culture is also contrasted with the reality of travel. Expectations may be set higher than reality exists, and the reality of travel may yield new problems, barriers, and anxieties culturally. However, once one returns from traveling, thoughts of anticipation are forgotten and only the destination is remembered. I thoroughly enjoyed the way that de Botton compares art and travel as one’s channels of simplification and selection of the imagination.

Just a cool pictureTravel is essentially about sacrifice, which Alain De Botton alludes to; our quest for happiness, if that is what our journeys are a part of, can only continue once we have given something up, be it money, or the comfort of home, or privacy. Travel is also an attempt to satisfy various itches, miniature quests, which vary from person to person, and which, when scratched, approximate a temporary kind of happiness.
De Botton’s allusion to Chamford and the toad-swallowing illustrates this paradox of travel fairly well; the swallowing of the toad is the sacrifice, and everything that follows is happy, if only in comparison. The prelude of unhappiness, of a lesser state, or of the embracing of a lesser state, is what makes the follow-up so much greater.
A few of these sacrifices: freedom, in order to experience more of a country in a short period of time, which we give up while on a guided tour; the money we pay for the brief happiness of travel and which we give up by taking time off to travel; the time we spend looking for vacationing possibilities, planning, packing, and actually being on vacation.

Finally, I am almost up to date on my posts. This should be the last late one. I have finished de Botton and have been thinking at length about some of the ideas he puts forth in his first three chapters. To begin with, I found him to be an excellent writer, but there were times when I was irritated by his tone. The first chapter in particular bothered me in this way. I disliked some of the generalizations he made about human nature with respect to travel. He claims that though he expected to escape not only England, but also his negative thoughts and worries on a trip to Barbados, he found that his mind followed his body and he wasn’t able to enjoy his vacation to the extent he had imagined he would. On page 21 he writes, “It seems that unlike the continuous enduring contentment that we anticipate, our actual happiness with, and in, a place must be a brief and, at least to the conscious mind, apparently haphazard phenomenon…new patterns of anxiety inevitably form on the horizon of consciousness”. I was bothered by this comment. I have found in my experiences as a traveler that if I am in a place where the sun shines in a brilliant blue sky all day, where I can hear the lap of the ocean from my hotel room and where I am surrounded by natural and exotic beauty, I am rarely plagued by anxieties and problems I am plagued with at home. If I am indeed confronted with them in a moment of contemplative relaxation, I usually have the strength of mind to postpone a pity party until I have returned to the monotonous stretches of gray days at home.

Largest street in the world, i pass by it everydaySince I decided to study abroad I’ve been thinking about what this experience will mean to me once I get home. I’ve had thoughts about how I will change as a person, friend, student, writer, etc. I think part of me thought that this would happen instantaneously and only for the better.
Quickly though I’m finding out in Buenos Aires what De Botton found out in the Caribbean. I brought myself on this trip.
I’m not going to jump in and eat a steak everyday. I need a salad of some kind.
I’m going to be homesick and shy.
I’m going to need a daily intake of English.
This last one is the hardest to admit. I thought that once I arrived I would be speaking Spanish all of the time. Now I seem to be trying to find ways that I can get at least an hour or two outside of class where I can find time to speak Spanish.
As De Botton starts to worry about lunch and his next year’s project. I find myself worrying about why I came to Buenos Aires at all. I wonder about why I chose to take a semester here. I wonder about many things that invite the melancholy that De Botton describes as bring himself to a place.
But unlike De Botton I’m not sure this will ruin my image of Buenos Aires. My conception of this trip and its realization definitely have a gap, but not an unanticipated one. Perhaps it is because I read this book earlier in the year, but I also think it is part of the nature of moving to another country.

ildere

In reading “The Art of Travel,” I was struck by both the arrangement of the book as a whole, and the thoughts and themes that he drew upon. The book demonstrates a creative, eclectic approach to nonfiction, and I loved the way the author referenced authors, poets, theorists, and artists, alongside anecdotes of his own journeys. I found it made the book really engaging and rich with ideas.

So far, I don't really know what to think of de Botton. All kinds of things that he says make sense with experiences I've had, but only in a sort of pessimistic sense. I don't think he's a pessimist, but over-analysis of any experience can make it seem less beautiful, especially in the case of travel. This is because, at least for me, travel is beautiful as it is, just being that experience without recording it in mind or writing in a clear fashion. This anti-analytic experience I have is the opposite of what de Botton writes about. Nonetheless, I can relate to his descriptions, especially those about places like the American diner. I had a sort of interesting experience reading about that...
I ended up leaving my reading in the middle of his description of the diner, to go do something else. I didn't return to the book for a few days. When I came back to the page I'd been reading, I'd already forgotten the context, but I just kept reading instead of going back a few paragraphs. The description is so clear and resonates so well with MY memory of such places, that I didn't need to reread anything.
Overall I really can't tell what to think of de Botton...I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say about him yet.

There was once particular section of the Botton reading that really captured my attention. On page 19 he begins to describe the feeling of sitting by the sea, and I couldn’t help but relate to a similar sensation of calmness I get every time I sit by the water. Shortly after this description on pages 20 and 21 he discusses his frustration with his own thoughts that seem to “assert their presence in ways that would threaten or even negate the purpose of what the eyes had come [on vacation] to see” (19). His elaborations on this concept really struck me because I had a very similar experience last weekend when I traveled to Colonia, Uruguay for the day.

In the company of 2 friends and the possibility of interacting with others, I realized that, despite my unfamiliar surroundings and their excitement, I still felt exactly as I had before I left Buenos Aires. My thoughts and overall SELF seemed to reside in my mind as a constant reminder of all the trivial things that were taking over my day-to-day life. Even on a venture out of town with the intention of escaping the tedious worries and preoccupations, I was unable to leave these feelings behind. They seemed to swallow me so that I was not fully grasping the beauty of Colonia, but was floating through the cobblestone streets and ivy covered buildings. I was still so tied to the stress of homework, future obligations, and the apprehension of what was going to happen that I couldn’t fully appreciate what was going on right in front of me.