Month: September 2020

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Catherine Dodd Corona

The Foreign Spell and Grand Tour

A response to Iyer’s optimism

Progymnasmata: Thesis

“Among the Beverly Hills–worthy sanctuaries that encircle the village of Ubud—full of signs for paradise regained, bikini parties, and furniture stores called Reincarnation—people will tell you that Bali is “spoiled,” as if choosing to forget that this is what the island has been tempting every visitor to say since the beginning. And as if the so-called spoiling makes the place any less eerie or unsettling or unfathomable. Pundits assure us the world is homogenized now—there are KFCs everywhere on Bali, and DHL will now send your owl masks back to Santa Monica almost overnight—but forty years of travel, from Bolivia to Ladakh to Ethiopia, Beirut, and North Korea, have only convinced me of the opposite.”

Bali is certainly not spoiled, but it is less unsettling because of the overwhelming amount of visitors. It is wonderful that Iyer can find the beauty in Bali being more homogenized than other countries and the merit behind KFCs and bikini parties. As wonderful as it is, he is leaving out a lot of what makes people say Bali is spoiled. It is true that Bali is basically paradise, riding around on a moped through the sweet smelling jungle, eating the rawest fruits, vegetables and chocolate, and lounging by almost magical fountains and pools. Its air is tangibly tranquil, the culture is full and beautiful but Bali is not just some magical foreign place.

The recent development and increase of tourism in Bali has definitely made the small island prosper and has fed its people and culture. It is certainly beneficial, but it is so oversaturated with tourists it removes the wonderful uncomfortability of travel. Yes, when someone travels to Bali they are removing themselves from their habitual day to day, but many people treat Bali as a bender and less so a cultural exploration. It is true that regardless they will feel a different culture and I can not tell a person how to appreciate a place, but I met so many people that didn’t leave Canggu their whole trip because they were too hungover.

I struggle with this view because I have only been there once, and I have no place to say that partiers do not appreciate Bali. I felt that I appreciated Bali and I still subscribed to stumbling through the streets late at night. I am also not saying that these partiers make Bali any less Bali. Bali is whatever it chooses to be, and whatever it morphs into. I am simply arguing that this influx of tourists doesn’t necessarily make Bali more culturally beautiful.

There are some huge downsides to the tsunami of Aussies, Americans, or Germans who have an aim of not being sober or seeing the sunlight. That downside is specifically the lack of respect people give Bali. The disrespect comes from their pure aim to simply use it as an adult playground for drinking.

After, living with a widowed Balinese native, her two sons, and my old family friend Tom Lang for two weeks I felt I got to see many sides of Bali. I attended a ceremony deep in the mountains under a volcano and learned how to pray. I was dressed in traditional clothing by my hostess grandmother who did not speak a lick of english, and bathed in an ancient spring. I went to the international school made of bamboo, and yoga retreats where my friend would teach. I met foreign business owners who told me how difficult it was to have a business as a foreigner (lots of bribes was his answer). I met a woman who fled from her abusive husband in California and has lived peacefully in Bali with her wonderful daughter. There are so many enriching and wonderful sides of Bali, from people that are native born and immigrates. I feel not many people seek to explore these different avenues. I was lucky, yes, to have a local as a guide, but many tourists go to parties do not see these magical factors that make up Bali. It disheartens me, but then again I cannot tell another person how to travel. That is up to them. I just believe the influx of tourists is not just a magical collision of culture. I think it is more complicated than what Iyer makes it out to be. 

Note: This is what was on my mind after the readings. In no way do I think I am qualified to retort what Iyer is saying, because of my personal experience. I also struggle with bringing my personal experience into the mix since it can come off as me just wanting to talk about me going to Bali, that of course is not my intention. 

Side Thought:

“I wasn’t rich, but the door to the world was swinging open for those of us ready to live rough and call ourselves foreigners for life.”

This quote made my heart sing. I have a core brief that anyone, from any background can travel. I am in no way saying everyone at the drop of a hat can get on a plane and fly away. There are major obstacles in people’s way. From children, to felony charges, to demanding jobs, to overprotective parents, but I have seen people who have a deep urge to travel overcome many unsurpassable obstacles. Do not become a fugitive, but people often hold themselves back just because they believe they just can’t travel. Even if one can’t leave the country Kenab, Utah or Atlanta can be just as foreign as Cairo or Kathmandu. It is about how one prioritizes their life. There are legitimate reasons people cannot travel. For example, I am not a mother with three children and two jobs and I understand that, but many of the people I come across are also not mothers with demanding jobs. Yet, I hear all the time from young, privileged people, I wish I could go to Japan. My response? Do it. Save the money, prioritize and go. Can’t find someone to go with you? Go alone. Can’t speak Japanese? Stay in hostels and meet people that do. Do not have the time to plan an itinerary? Make it up as you go, it’s much more freeing.You do not have to be privileged to travel is what I am trying to get across, and I think Iyer believes that same.

 

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Phillip Wade Wilson

Why We Travel – Chreia

Why We Travel by Pico Iyer is an anecdote that personifies his beliefs on why humans travel and, in my opinion, essentially establishes a need for people around the world to travel. He notes that we, as travelers and tourists, can be a “carrier pigeon” in ways that extend beyond transporting messages between people and places… we transport ideas of what citizens around the globe are like, we incite discussion and discourse, we provide an understanding of concepts and ideologies not available in other parts of the world and the same can be said of the citizens of those places to us…

“Travel is the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places, and saving them from abstraction and ideology”

Iyer walks us through his travels and what he learned along the way to provide us with the backing for his claims through personal experience and gives us insight into how he believes we ought to travel. Combined with his TED Talk, Iyer makes a compelling argument for the traversers of the world to shed their biases and what they think they know about our global community and fully immerse ourselves into what it is. I found his essay and video to push us along a path of acceptance and understanding while simultaneously being open to the unknown. He references the Dalai Lama’s use of “I don’t know” as a way to give his audience clarity into what being open to the unknown is and can be. The way he transitions from topic to topic with an introductory structure between his essay’s paragraphs and his talking points enables his message to be comprehended with little effort on the part of the audience.

Iyer’s diction, in comparison to Stevenson, Wordsworth, and Perrottet, sets him apart from the previous travel writers in the simple fact that he states what he means and does not give cause for confusion. The other writers use a sort of flowery language that can be misinterpreted and, at times, difficult to fully realize what is being explained at that moment. Stevenson’s convoluted and deeply imaginative style creates a beautiful expression of his love for autumn. Wordsworth’s allegories, metaphors, and similes compare this-to-that which, for some, can mean completely different things given a separate culture or ideological standpoint. Perrottet, in my opinion, does not fully contextualize his claims and arguments which lead what he means to be misinterpreted as what he is critiquing. Iyer noted “rescuing the humanity of places, and saving them from abstraction and ideology” is best done through travel; I believe this is what he does within his essay and video. By allowing us to accompany him through his life’s journey we travel where he has been in order to learn what he learned without needing to make the mistakes he made. He saves us from the abstraction and ideology other writers provide and rescues the humanity of the cities, towns, villages, and countries he has visited.

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Catherine Dodd Corona

Why we travel. In the eyes of Iyer.

The nonreligious religious aspect for why we travel.

Progymnasmata: Chreia

In a world full of social media, selfie sticks, and full camera rolls it is hard to emphasize the magic of travel. It seems today that a large group of people only go on adventures for the pictures and audience that will see them. But I would argue that regardless of their aim internal growth is stapled to the experience. Iyer, a well known author on travel, highlights this romantic perspective on why we travel. While he has other aims in his essay, Why we travel, one of them is clearly the aspect that different cultures cause an internal awakening. He states, “in some sense, that all the significant movement we ever take is internal.” In this he exemplifies the significance of moving internally and growing. Not only do different cultures emphasize this internal movement but it places it on fast forward. Placing oneself in an uncomfortable, unknown is essential for internal growth. He also discusses meditation, and in a way how traveling can make reflection explode and speed up. Not necessarily reflection on the differences and similarities between culture but instead reflection on the inner being. This is a very religious, especially Buddhist, practice. He makes this point by first stating that he is not religious but this practice in a sense certainly is. He writes, “I’m not religious, but one beauty of a religious practice, I sense, is that though it does not infallibly give one solace or wisdom. It almost always leaves one with a greater sense of humility.” In a romantic sense he highlights this external, larger entity that we sense and feel, when we practice inward reflection. He also states that reflection caused by travel often does not instill solace or wisdom but leaves a person humbled by the grander entity. Which contradicts the reason lots of people travel, to gain wisdom and separate yourself from the well known. Even though these aims contradict themselves they are both good reasons to step into the unknown. This greater entity is the indescribable feeling of connection between different cultures. We travel for that reflection and connection to the greater world. 

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Ehren Joseph Layne

Encomium on the Unknown

Encomium on the Unknown

 

I strongly believe that to not know is better than to know. To know that I can know more is a far more exhilarating feeling than knowing what I already know. Knowledge is powerful but the pursuit of it is sublime. To travel into the unknown; a new country with new culture, new people living different lives. What a feeling it is to travel to the unknown, and find yourself lost in another world, one you get to discover. 

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Nathan Ryan Reeves

The Love For Exploration (Description/Narrative?)

 

As a person who has been confined to the US and its territories, I have surprisingly always had this itch for travel. While most of the time when I travel, its for a family vacation, or just to visit family. While this can sometimes be difficult to control where I want to go, it does not limit my imagination to where I can go next. And while each time I travel is nerve-wracking, I’m convinced that after the struggle of the journey, that there’s always something to look back at after the fact and something to be happy about and reflect upon once at the destination.

The question of the “why” we travel to be something related to curiosity, or something that is hidden deeper inside of us. Sometimes that why comes along with an “I need this” or just some time to explore aimlessly. In the reading for this assignment, Iyer says that

“…we travel, in essence, to become young fools again — to slow time down and get taken in and fall in love once more”.

When he writes that there is a falling in love once more with whatever we are doing, it hints that there is an idea of the fall. That we all have a curious tie to this love in nature, or whatever passions you have, and there is this moment where you have this enlightening experience to travel.

I’ve haven’t specifically had an enlightening experience, but a moment of enlightened realization of nature and of myself. Before coming to school, and during this whole summer I had developed this sensation and feeling of anxiety and “corona depression”. I was self-aware but hadn’t come to terms that I was living, but I was not “alive”, and that this Pandemic had left a toll on my mental health. A couple of weeks before I moved back to DC I was driving to a campground in the Adirondacks with my family and had insisted to myself that this was a reset that I possibly needed. While the driving wasn’t taxing, the time had felt like forever once I moved into the second half of the trip. It was my impatience needling, and my desire was growing. The desire to do something other than sit, and in the moment, I wanted to just walk, or even run the rest of the way then drive.

Once I had gotten there, I drove up to the campground I was staying at. All were separated by about 100 ft of space, and the grounds were as empty as a ghost town. I practically saw 20 people in total close to me, which gave me this sense of isolation. I had to go for a run at some point by myself, and since I was in the Adirondacks, I felt as if this were the perfect opportunity to “explore”, or to just run and be relaxed and in the moment.

When I first started on my route, I wanted to see as much as I could, so I decided on an out and back. A few miles in I was surrounded by forest on these isolated roads, which towered me and made me feel as insignificant in size as I could feel. It was relaxing because there were no cars, and (since it was the Adirondacks) I saw multiple mountains in the distance. They looked as if they were small and distant, but I knew better since I could see some up close eventually and would get to feel the real size of the mountain.

I fell into a Xen mode where I had zoned out and wasn’t thinking about anything except for that the pine trees around me created this contrast with my surroundings to create a tunnel where I felt insignificant. Suddenly I had stumbled upon a clearing in the forest where power lines were leading through. I was curious to see what the view looked like, and as I passed, saw this mountain in the clearing, and had really felt the sense of where I stood. On my way back, I sat down on the side of the road in the dirt, and just sat down and took in the view. While not the biggest mountain ever, I had this feeling of relishing the moment since I was by myself, and as in the middle of nowhere as I could be. At this moment I had fallen in love with the nature around me and proceeded to explore more of what was unknown to me. This time that I had was something that I needed, but it was important since I had this feeling of excitement and wanting a whole lot more than what I originally wanted.

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Lucas Enrique Fernandez

September 8th Progym

Traveling With An Open Mind

Thesis or Theme:

Without looking, set the scene outside your window right now. Even if you do not get every detail correctly, the majority of what you describe should be correct due to your familiarity with the area surrounding you. Now if I were to say to travel to a different country and perform the same task, it may prove to be much more difficult. Travel breeds unfamiliarity, travel pushes us to move outside of the comfortably constructed worlds we trap ourselves in during the daily routines of our lives. That is why Pico Iyer argues the reason we travel to escape from our lives, wake up our minds, and in turn learn more about ourselves from our journey.

Iyer perfectly captures the essence of travel in his opening paragraph. Claiming that

We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate… And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again — to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”

This idea drives home the first point that we travel to escape from our daily lives. Adventure allows us to alleviate the pains and struggles of which we face at home and “slow time down” in an experience that allows us to take in and appreciate our world. Iyer also makes the connection that travel is a way for our minds to wake up, remarking,

And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed.

We must keep our minds open when we travel, looking with an innocent eye, receptive to everything the experience has to offer. If we do not do this then we are not completely devoting ourselves to our travels, which is a waste of time. The final component of why we travel is to learn about ourselves, Iyer remarks

if more and more of us have to carry our sense of home inside us, we also — Emerson and Thoreau remind us — have to carry with us our sense of destination.

In our travels we take with us a sense of home, but when we take to our travels it gives us a break from that allowing for us to deeply reflect on our lives and home and instill a sense of yearning for what we have already.

Some may argue that travel is not all about reflection, some people just travel for the fun of that. To that I ask, are you not travelling to leave behind your normal lives? You are seeking fun, but why not seek that fun at home? Travel provides the escape from the familiarity and the mundane in normal life. Next, to be able to have this fun, do you not have to keep your mind open in your travels? Sometimes you must stray from the road most popularly traveled and be truly receptive to the culture of the place you are traveling to have the most pleasurable experience. Lastly, once you are done with these travels do you not find yourself reflecting on the journey you took, or of what life will be like once you get back home? In that moment, your travels have granted you the gift of self-reflection both a reason why and a positive outcome of travel.

The memories from our travels live on in our hearts, even in William Wordsworth’s poem I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud the author finds himself thinking about the sights he saw during his travels later on his couch. Travel provides us with sparks of knowledge, of which we would never find otherwise. Taking steps into the unknown in these places where that is all that surrounds us, allows for people to shed the ignorance of knowledge and become learners anew. The joy of travel is taking this open-mindedness back home with us, to hold until the next time we find ourselves yearning for the unfamiliar.

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Samuel James Conroy

Theme Progymnasmata

Samuel Conroy

Professor Comstock

September 8, 2020

Rhetoric of Travel

Wordsworth Theme Progymnasmata

            William Wordsworth, one of the greatest poets in history, describes his disappointment with the modern world through his poem, “The World is Too much With Us.” During Wordsworth’s time, the world was undergoing a mass transition due to the industrial revolution taking place. The world was moving away from nature and becoming entrenched in material items being produced by the revolution.  Wordsworth uses a sonnet system in iambic pentameter to lay out his frustrations. His vexations can be heard through,

“Little we see that nature is ours; We have given our hearts away” (Wordsworth 3-4).

Wordsworth drives the theme of communion with nature, which he does in many of his poems to express his annoyance with the current times. His use of rhetoric through theme is brilliantly done throughout this poem allowing him to engage the reader with his line of thought and lay out his emotions in an effective manner.

 

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Jack Albert Nusenow

Appreciation and Laziness

William Woodsworth and Pico Iyer, two hundred years apart, pick at ideas of the tourist and the traveler. Though Iyer says that delineating between them is something now fashionable, traveling to boast about your experiences is in no way novel. Woodsworth’s poems approach traveling and nature simplistically through examining how humans appreciate and connect with the world – and how we don’t.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers

In The World is Too Much With Us Woodsworth’s presents to us, in a roundabout way, nature’s value. His poem is a gentle nudge to us that we have been neglectful habitants. Blind and unappreciative. And yet we travel.

Iyer seeks to describe to us why we do so. In many places he offers answers to that question, but to me the most compelling answer is this:

We travel, then, in search of both self and anonymity — and, of course, in finding the one we apprehend the other.

In our physical homes, in the cities and towns we call home, we easily get complacent. We stop looking at the trees around us because we’ve seen them so many times. We forget to smile at the things that make our spaces unique. In traveling, we can recontextualize and refresh what it’s like to perceive things.

In high school I went to Rome. Everyday I was there I walked through Piazza del Popolo in the morning. It became familiar, but never repetitive. I often wonder at what point it would, at what point I would stop noticing every statue and stop looking at every person, but I came back home with fresh eyes as Proust would hope. That point, to me, is the one travel fends off. I try not to get lazy around the beautiful things I see every day, but its not easy because its rarely mindful.

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Samuel E Evans

A selection of poems by Wordsworth, Readings by Iyer

Progym: Impersonation

I stand upon the sandy shore
Friends around me, I need not more,
Looking at the starry night
Those distant points, so bold and bright.
We gaze upon the milky way
Our travels are done for that day,
We’re tired and sore, but still prevail,
Tomorrow we’ll continue on down the trail.

The night is cold, chilling to the core,
But no coats or hats we wore,
We almost enjoyed the elements,
For it seemed they were heaven-sent.
The glory of the world, creation,
Mother Nature’s many children,
Upon the sky, the Earth, before us now,
How beautiful, we only wonder how.

This is why I long for travel,
To watch with wonder as nature unravels,
To see before me all I do not know,
But can come to learn, I hope so.
Through adventure we leave behind
Certainty and comfort, we unwind
By letting go and casting forth
Into unknowns, we go headfirst.

And there I stand on the beach,
So far from home, I cannot reach,
All the amenities that it contains,
Until I long for them again.
But that is the essence of this all,
We hear travel’s beckoning call,
For new discoveries, we seek backcountry,
Now time for bed, we’ll wait and see.

 

Categories
Paula I Arraiza

A Love Letter to Traveling

Type of Progym: Encomium

In his piece Why We Travel, Iyer focuses on describing to us the reason why many people travel, or why you should travel. He praises the act of traveling, describing it as a way to both lose and find yourself. Throughout the article, he gives various reasons as to why some of us travel, all of them being positive. In other words, he praises the act of traveling. For example, he states,

“You can teach them what they have to celebrate as much as you celebrate what they have to teach”.

Iyer is stating that traveling gives us the chance to not only celebrate different cultures but have others celebrate our cultures as well. Not only do we learn about the culture we immerse ourselves in when traveling, but we are also teaching those around us about our home culture, which they may not know about. Basically, he calls traveling an educational experience for both parties involved. On a similar note, he states that travel

“guides us toward a better balance of wisdom and compassion of seeing the world clearly, and yet feeling it truly.”

When traveling, we see the world in a different light, since we are constantly learning and experiencing things we wouldn’t if we were stuck at home. Iyer definitely believes that travel opens up your mind and changes your perspective. Perhaps the highest praise he does in his article is comparing the emotions traveling brings to us to the emotion of being in love. When talking about traveling and comparing it to love, he mentions,

“For if every true love affair can feel like a journey to a foreign country, where you can’t quite speak the language, and you don’t know where you’re going, and you’re pulled ever deeper into the inviting darkness, every trip to a foreign country can be a love affair, where you’re left puzzling over who you are and whom you’ve fallen in love with.”

Both traveling and being in love gives you that sense of excitement for the unknown. Iyer compares them both to a

“heightened state of awareness, in which we are (…) ready to be transformed”.

This ties into his past claims, since learning and experiencing different cultures and places while traveling definitely transforms us as a person. All in all, Iyer definitely believes traveling is one of the best experiences you can give yourself, which is why he praises it highly during this article.