I Travel The World to See How The World Works

Through the eyes of a traveler you shall see, the world as it actually is, was, could and will be – by experiencing it all, up close and personal.

People who don’t travel cannot have a global view, all they see is what’s in front of them. They cannot accept new things because all they know is where they live.

-Martin Yan

Sometime in the early 90’s I disassembled the single most important video gaming device in history and also the most intriguing thing I ever knew up to that age, the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

As a child with the internet still years away, the fact that I can control a character that’s displayed on my TV was magical, not technological or mechanical but actual magic. I wanted to see how that magic worked.

The (pre)inception of my wanderlust obsession.

Exploring the insides of that Nintendo, I realized it wasn’t magic but something people cleverly put together to make Mario do whatever the controller commanded him to. Mystery solved(ish).

After that, I would take apart anything around the house that had a mechanism. The mystery of how a function functions was incredibly and irresistibly intriguing to me.

Earth is also a machine but with vast moving parts.

A cosmically complex one that’s ever-changing, but the definition stands. So that’s how I perceive the world and I want to see how it works, that’s why I travel all over it.

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

-Saint Augustine

I can’t crack open the Earth’s crust and inner layers to see the core in action, but luckily, the kind of workings I really want to see is how the world figuratively works more than how the planet literally functions.

Geography, psychology and history is all a part of it, although not specifically, it’s more about understanding the nature of the universe world that I’m a part of.

Independent travel, backpacking or in my case, vagabonding is the best possible way to well, literally and figuratively seeing the world and how it works.

Delving deep into each and every culture so that I can learn from them, eat with them, sleep with them, play with them and just be with them.

There’s more to travel than the act of world study, of course. Beyond reading the world, it’s about experiencing adventure, finding enlightenment, tasting hedonism and seeking the cure for wanderlust.

That’s one book I can really get into.

Observing it, participating in it then living it.

[The featured photo was taken at Cape Eluanbi, the southernmost part of Taiwan.]