You don’t take a journey; the journey takes you
“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”
–John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley, (1962)
September 24th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Travels with Charley was one of the first travel books I ever read. As you may remember from the book Steinbeck winds most nights with some whiskey in a coffee. Inspired by Steinbeck I decided to try that drink out myself. Being in college, I didn’t just have one and a caffeine fuelled drunk can be a bad one.