Sink, swim, travel
Imagine you’re a fish living in a aquarium. Each day, as you swim around doing whatever a fish does to keep busy, you see dirt polluting the sides of your tank. You see the dirt that floats around inside the tank. The water seems to get a little murkier with every second look. There are just too many fish in this tank; it’s frustrating how difficult it is to enjoy swimming without bumping into others. The owner feeds the aquarium regularly and he assumes everything to be perfectly fine. But there are things he doesn’t notice, like how the biggest and baddest fish rush to the top of the tank during feeding time and eat up most of the food as it gets dumped into the aquarium, forcing the others to settle for whatever trickles down from the top. The smaller fish that venture to the top at the wrong time soon find themselves part of the menu. Every now and then you can get a quick glimpse of what lies outside the aquarium when you look through the less-grimy spots on the grimy glass, but that is all. It’s enough to remind you of what a god-awful shitty aquarium you’re living in every single time you take a peek.
One day, for some reason or the other you find yourself swimming near the top of the tank when a rogue wave (yes, this aquarium has waves!) washes you over the side. You find yourself lying on the floor, gasping for water and flopping around like an imbecile. For the first time in your life you can see the aquarium from the outside. How strange it seems to be, and so far away! How strange it feels to be on dry land!
Passion seizes you as your thoughts focus on the aquarium. It’s filthy. Dear god. The next thing you realize is how beautiful the aquarium would be if it were taken care of by its owner. And then you die. A fish out of water. Mother Nature gets the best of you.
But what if you didn’t die? What if, for some miraculous reason, you found yourself able to defy the laws of physics, stand on your fins and walk? After swimming all your life, you would find an entirely different way of existence outside the tank, something that perhaps your wildest imagination could never have dreamed of because none of it is wild fantasy. It is real. It is part of the same world as the aquarium, but it is undeniably different. It is too bad that such a miracle will never occur, since fish are doomed to a terrible death when removed from water.
Luckily, we are human beings and not fish. If we leave our aquarium, we live on (for the most part) and we can take whatever we experienced on our journey back with us when we return. This is the gift of travel: to be able to open new perspectives into life through experiencing and interacting with other cultures. Once you’ve experienced walking on dry land, you’ll never swim the same way again.
Travel, like most things in life, is what you make of it. You could take a guided tour all over Europe and take nothing from it if your eyes are closed the entire time, or you could go whitewater rafting in Cagayan De Oro and immerse yourself in an experience that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. I understand not everyone is fortunate enough to have opportunities for travel to other countries within their reach, but this does not mean travel within the same country is not possible. The Philippines, due to our tribal heritage, has a vast amount of different cultures hidden away in every nook and cranny of our 7,107 islands. Opportunities for relatively inexpensive travel within our borders lie in wait for those who are determined to find it and aren’t afraid to be adventurous. Indeed, the more audacious a trip, the greater the experience turns out to be.
There are so many people who go to Boracay every summer, year after year, to drink themselves into oblivion over and over again. If you are such a person, imagine if each time summer came along you chose instead to travel to a place in the Philippines you have never seen before with a few of your closest friends. How much richer would your life be? How broad would be your experience? Boracay is the safe option. Embrace the danger of stepping outside your comfort zone and make it a part of you, since too much comfort encourages stagnancy in one’s life. Take the initiative and actively seek out that which will enliven you rather than that which kills originality, for as soon as originality dies, so does creativity, and without creativity can we really say we are complete human beings?
As residents of the Philippines, we all have a share in the ownership of our aquarium. It is our responsibility not to let it fall into disrepute, and perhaps we will be better equipped to deal with that if our worldview is steeped in life-enriching experiences. Travel is a luxury. Let it not go to waste.
