There's been such a wave of 1000 things to do/eat/read/see books in the last few years, and I have rather disdained them.
When I was in my 20s I was going to go up the Amazon and visit the Far East etc.etc. but I realised a few years ago that all that flying about was bad for the planet, and that really I didn't want to go all over the world. I realise Australia and New Zealand have spectacular scenery but I'm not that interested in going there.
I developed the principle that I would only visit places in the Roman Empire or Alexander's Empire, by train. Since then I have pretty much stuck to that by not going anywhere except Madrid - only the trains were booked up so we had to go by plane (we returned by coach thanks to the volcano). However there are still a couple of places I would like to go to outside that category - namely Costa Rica, the Galapagos, bits of Africa that aren't accessible by train, even for Michael Palin.
Although I love the natural world I don't need it to be big and astounding - I get just as much pleasure watching a couple of sparrows squabbling on a station platform, or a colony of lizards living in Roman ruins. The progress of the quince and apple buds in the garden is just as engaging as anything tropical might be.
I think the reason I'm not that interested in seeing "the rest of the world" - the places beyond the Eurasian/Mediterranean limits are simply lack of understanding of their culture and iconography - there is so much pleasure in seeing buildings and pictures in Europe - because of understanding them and reading them... the Near East and India (can't seriously imagine getting there by train somehow) also have historical connections that engage me, but when it comes to other places I'm less interested. I don't think I really care so much about novelty - just making connections. Only connect...
When I was in my 20s I was going to go up the Amazon and visit the Far East etc.etc. but I realised a few years ago that all that flying about was bad for the planet, and that really I didn't want to go all over the world. I realise Australia and New Zealand have spectacular scenery but I'm not that interested in going there.
I developed the principle that I would only visit places in the Roman Empire or Alexander's Empire, by train. Since then I have pretty much stuck to that by not going anywhere except Madrid - only the trains were booked up so we had to go by plane (we returned by coach thanks to the volcano). However there are still a couple of places I would like to go to outside that category - namely Costa Rica, the Galapagos, bits of Africa that aren't accessible by train, even for Michael Palin.
Although I love the natural world I don't need it to be big and astounding - I get just as much pleasure watching a couple of sparrows squabbling on a station platform, or a colony of lizards living in Roman ruins. The progress of the quince and apple buds in the garden is just as engaging as anything tropical might be.
I think the reason I'm not that interested in seeing "the rest of the world" - the places beyond the Eurasian/Mediterranean limits are simply lack of understanding of their culture and iconography - there is so much pleasure in seeing buildings and pictures in Europe - because of understanding them and reading them... the Near East and India (can't seriously imagine getting there by train somehow) also have historical connections that engage me, but when it comes to other places I'm less interested. I don't think I really care so much about novelty - just making connections. Only connect...
No comments:
Post a Comment