Archive for July 21st, 2009

Neal Stephenson has a beautiful mind, one that roams both the highways and back roads of human knowledge with equal ease.  As a writer, he is willing to grab you by the hand and take you along, pointing out new concepts, and asking you to follow a different route when revisiting the familiar.

In his book Anathem, he talks about the “story” and the way in which organizational work life has sucked most of the individual stories out of people’s everyday lives.  Their stories have become those of the institution, rather than those of their own making. People who find it difficult to sacrifice their personal storytelling to the constraints of economy and efficiency may strike out in a different direction, choosing a more entrepreneurial or adventurous way of life. 

Could it be that this is why the idea of travel seems so much more like a necessity than a luxury?  Perhaps it’s not just that people feel they “deserve a reward for working hard all year.”  Perhaps travel fulfills a very basic need that we all have to tell a tale; to have an experience with a beginning, a middle, and an end; one that is unique to us; one we can cherish in our memories and in the retelling; a story of our own.