Airline flights around the country dotted my professional life. My favorite parts of each flight were the ascent and descent where the lives of those below played out in streets and buildings and homes that could be seen from above. My mind whirled furiously as I tried to imagine not only what people below were doing, but why the landscape told me their stories.
Fields, farms, row homes, mansions, rural, industrial, suburb, city, lush, dry, busy, silent, gravel or paved; each landscape begat the people therein. And within each landscape were individuals, families, friends and strangers - past and present - acting upon one another to shape their lives.
For me, travel by any mode of transportation brings not only personal pleasure, but expanded knowledge. Knowledge of our global condition, both shared and unique. It's hard not to become a cheerleader for how much more we understand if we see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears and touch with our own hands the varieties of our world. The fanciest computer, photos or video can never really fully match being there.
And knowledge becomes understanding, concern, compassion and a willingness to act on behalf of others as well as ourselves.
Sadly, despite global expansion, less travel may be one more consequence of our collective failure to resolve the environmental issues upon which travel depends; bound further by the current economic crisis.
Perhaps not, but it is up to us. Each generation must now only share what it knows of the world, but make it possible for future generations to discover their own reality in our rapidly changing world.
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