So. I visited Norfolk for the first time this February. Norfolk has a skull-shaped coastline but I did not discover it all on my feet. We wandered around Hunstanton and the Holme Sande Dunes instead. And the biggest thing that happened to me in February is straightly related to that visit.
Namely, I came up with a new theory about human nature which answers the most spike-y and acute questions I’ve had about what makes us all so different. (Well, technically, what makes us all the same, but using different means to reach that sameness.)(Uhuh.)
Surely?!
Imagine you get an unplanned job project that suddenly leaves you with you a nice amount of extra money. What’s your first reaction?
I, being a slow thinker, spent the most of 2015 and 2016 pondering over the following question: is it possible that not all of us feel the same thing in that situation?
The answer: it is not only possible, but it also is the actual case. The actual life. With a perfect shock I discovered that not everyone is thinking about new routes, roads, mountains and destinations all the time. And that explains it. The difference of us all.
Yes, I have a job that’s my love and my hobby, and which I would also do it for free (for any clients reading this, only kidding). Yes, I’m reaching an end of a long academic road this year which just might leave me with a PhD degree. And yes, there is life, and a house renovation that is nearing its finish this year as well. But surely, SURELY, all one really thinks about is what unknown roads there are, just hours from their doorstep?!
New theory for human nature
Based on long hours of interviewing my friends, and on accounts heard from others, I am now convinced that humans fall into two large (and obviously not always straightforward) categories:
– people who get properly grounded, energised and refocused by visiting places they know well or where they have been before (visiting the same fells feels like visiting an old friend, a friend once said);
– people who get their soul back and reach their metaphorical home by going to places that are completely new.
How the theory really explains it all?
Here’s why and where it can be applied. It shreds light on:
- why some people are not upset when an idea of a trip gets forgotten because no one really takes the lead in organising it;
- why people have savings accounts that are actually savings accounts, and not cover-names for Travel Accounts;
- why some people follow maps in new cities and others could not think of anything worse;
- how certain work and living choices get made;
- why it is not the most shared dream of all people throughout all times –> to sit around a map or a globe, dreaming of places you can’t yet pronounce;
- why some of us have a need to return to certain places that give us back the sense of self (a ritual of sorts, technically);
- why some people always choose the new dish from the menu or never cook the same dish twice, and why some do.
A ritual for relocating the self
Usually, humans need rituals to create a new space either physically or mentally. This is why we choose the same roads to walk on when feeling on the edge, and why we re-read the same books or visit theat same holiday spot. This is partially why meditation works, and why regular workouts keep us sane (apart from the funky hormones, of course). It is curiosity that’s been given a form. But there’s another way to handle curiosity.
Gaining security and strength from the new
The other way is the following: you are one of those people who feel most secure and yourself-like in places where you have never been. This makes a rucksack full of sense. In a new place, your idea of the self has no familiar triggers to bring on the feel of a certain image, so you can feel borderless and – in the lack of a better description – the most authentic version of yourself.
You probably belong to this category, if:
- you’re willing to sit on a bus for 7 hours just to see a new place for one evening;
- you feel like sleeping in the palm of your favourite god when sleeping in a new place (a bunkbed, an airport, a hotel, someone’s sofa, etc.);
- you prefer hiking new trails to returning to a set of sweetly favourite ones:
- your mind rests like crazy when having boarded a local bus or a train in a country you have never been in;
- the unfamiliar makes you love and respect life and strangers more;
- an amount of fear in the day renders the peace of your evening more serene;
- it’s bliss to sit on trains for 12 hours withour internet or books;
- you need the knowledge that you’ll never run out of streets to walk on. You need it for your daily sanity;
- horizonless cities make you feel home;
- mountaineous terrains make you feel home (ok, now I’m just talking about me, but mountains are some of the last areas of true wilderness left);
- not having your things around you makes you feel creative again.
And this is why bleakness is good for the soul.
Institute of Wander 