travel for the sake of traveling. for what it is not what people tell you it is.

travel. is highly misunderstood by people nowadays.
not to be judgmental or anything but, how many people actually travel for the sake of travelling nowadays?

St. Augustine the hippo said "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

i like to travel,
but do i travel just to take photos of my experiences and show it off to others.. as part of the facebook social media conditioning, or can i travel just for the sake of the beautiful landscapes and people i'll meet along the way. valuing the journey in terms or memories and moments.

well.. it seems to be harder to do that nowadays.

i just came back from a ASEAN conferance that was conveniently held in our Dewan Kuliahs..
so.. as an SPTA student, we got free admission, and so happen my course's Ketua Program, Dr. Colin, opened it to whoever was interested, including the first years =D wohoo.. (while the other courses were only open.. well.. forced upon the final year students)

and... wow.. the participants and speakers who attended it, were... foreigners..
there was so many opportunities to mingle and learn, but... the first day i ... was a coward
i sat in my small circle of common friends, that i'd see and will be able to see the rest of the days here...

and i didn't take the golden opportunities presented. i regret
the second day, didn't want to repeat the same mistake...

it was hard, to start, to initiate,
but it was worth it.

coming back to the point, travel. why does physical exhaustion, being 'tired' and 'drained' put a sour face for the trip, and then when a camera comes out, as if it had some magical powers, the face randomly lighten and brightens up. so that it could snap a photo, acted out, fake. that shows how 'happy' one is on the trip.

"happiness, is knowing what is of value in the face of suffering."

when online media puts up an 'idea' that travelling is probably the 'cool' thing that you can do,
like "owh look, this kid's so cool cause he went here and there and so on and so forth"
and one tries to imitate that.. "i'm going to travel too so i look like what the bottle shapes me to be"

i follow the mold of the things of the earth, the trends.
when travel is really all about, breaking out.

travel isn't about reaching a destination,
not about standing at a point and saying "been there, done that"
but about the whole journey along the way,
the people one meets going through it.

travel to escape. but first, find out what your running away from.