Thursday, August 21, 2008

travel personas

you'll have to tilt your head to the left and turn your volume to the up.



the following are not rhetorical questions - i want answers! tell me about your experiences.

who are you when you travel? what do you do? what do you wear? how do you feel? what do you think about? do you talk to people more or less then when you are not traveling? what do you eat? how does it differ from what you eat when you are not traveling? how does that make you feel? physically. mentally. do you exercise? do you chew gum? can you still go to the bathroom? do you sit on the seat? do you care about money? what do you have with you? do you feel free? do you feel confined?

do the answers to these questions differ based on your mode of transportation?

how would you answer in regards to traveling by plane - the time in the airport, the time on the plane, the adjustment to your first location post airport?

how would you answer if walking was your mode of transportation?

how do these answers compare to the answers you'd give if the questions were about your normal daily life? are they very different? are they the same? do you notice any trends? where are you happiest?

2 comments:

the bald man said...

This time when I traveled I was silent more so then ever. My eyes were open and constantly eating what I saw. My cloths and possessions take shape in to simplicity, a state I wish I could get to at home. The feeling is as though I am at the edge of being free, like my belly is pressed up against the fence and I can see far in front of me. I think that it is wonderful to be out in the world.

Matt Carlson said...

I adopt a lot of different personas while traveling. Sometimes I'm a gregarious outsider wanting to dive into a random situation, other times I'm a misanthropic curmudgeon who just wants to read a book.

One thing about traveling that I've noticed is that it kind of de-centers you; while at home your daily rituals give your life a feeling of groundedness, travel throws that out the window, forcing you to take in everything fresh and as it comes, but also creating the sensation that nothing is really YOURS.

While traveling I like to look out the window at the passing scenery and think. Sometimes I think about abstract things like the nature of documentation, sometimes I just like to think about what I want to do when I get home.

Mode of transport does really effect things. An airplane ride is really intense for me and I usually try to just sleep through it and get it over with. A train is very tranquil and open feeling, lending itself to contemplation. A car is somewhere in between, feeling very free but simultaneously confining. Walking is probably really amazing, I've never really walked to anywhere even relatively far away. Werner Herzog is really deep into walking as a mode of transportation. He once walked from Germany to Paris to see a dying friend.

I think ultimately I'm happier at home, after traveling for a while I start to get frustrated that I can't really get any work done, although traveling is really useful as a sort of gestation period for ideas.