Did Travel Broaden Some of Britain’s Great Minds?

I love travelling. I am at my most creative when I have just come back from somewhere, or even when I’m waiting for a plane in a clean cut airport lounge. And the adage ‘travel broadens the mind’ is so inherent in our ‘Gap Year’ culture, we rarely even question whether or not paying 6 grand to STA Travel is going to publish us with an enlightened and insightful view of the world.

I believe that until I have seen more of the world, I cannot write about it with authority, or develop a complete political ideology. If I have never seen Tiananmen Square, or the Dharavi Slums, never walked the streets of Washington D.C, or set foot on African soil, how could I really know all that much? How could I make any lasting decisions on how to view the world, if viewing it from the porthole of a window that is South East England?

Historically, I am not alone in this feeling. A plethora Britain’s great thinkers took time out to ‘find themselves’. So, let’s answer a few questions like- where did Lord Byron go on his Gap Year? Who discovered the humble potato? Is travel really necessary to broaden our minds when we have access to the panorama of the Internet?

The first person to organise a round the world trip, before Thomas Cook opened on the high street, was Ferdinand Magellan, a Spaniard in search of good spices. This was in 1521. Even on this maiden voyage, things were discovered that were pioneering in 16th Century Science, such as the size of the Earth, making an International Date Line necessary that is still in effect today.

So how about the Brits?

A legacy of Exploration has given Britain a leading role in the discovery of new lands and knowledge. Adventurers like Mary Kingsley provided the first empathetic account of African tribal culture. Francis Drake carried out the first British voyage of discovery to the New World. Walter Raleigh introduced Britain to the potato. All of these early explorers where learning from travel like curious children asking questions. Can we go a bit further? Learn a bit more?

Then there are the creatives. Art and travel have always seemed intertwined. The Romantic Poets are a good example for this. Percy Shelley eloped with a different girl practically every week, to Europe, to Scotland. Travel was a Romantic tradition, and often discussed is the legendary Swiss retreat that the Shelleys went on with Lord Byron, on which they all wrote and Mary Shelley began ‘Frankenstein’. Byron, who went on the traditional ‘Grand Tour’ of the world from 1809-1811, wrote “With these countries, and events connected with them, all my really poetical feelings begin and end.” He surmises further, writing- “What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.” In short, one of Britain’s greatest poets doesn’t think he would have written if he had not travelled.

Popular Culture is not exempt from the ‘Travel Inspiration’ phenomenon. The Beatles perfected their craft in Hamburg. J.K Rowling finalised The first Harry Potter manuscript in Portugal. Even Prime Minister David Cameron took a pre-Oxford Gap Year in Hong Kong.

Travel in 2014 no longer means discovering the Americas, but Space. In a month where Europe has faced Economic troubles, talk of referendums and curbing immigration, it has also collaborated to land a spacecraft on a comet. Scientific discovery is the true golden egg in the exploration nest, and without the curiosity it takes to launch missions like this one, we would never make Scientific progress. And ultimately, isn’t that ability to look outside ourselves what makes us special as humans?

There is a line from the film Good Will Hunting that comes to mind, as said to the young genius-  “So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.”
Well, I’m not sure how smelling the Sistine Chapel is helpful in life, but there’s definitely value in experience. An empathy perhaps, that has coloured the works of many great writers, and shaped the ideas of individuals. Inspiration to create something new. Or discovering something that you would never otherwise have found.

On Blogs, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Education.

Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote that “Intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” This is a notion that has stayed with me since I first stumbled upon that quote a few years ago. It is now one of my core beliefs that education is the answer to a whole host of the world’s problems. Studies consistently state that increased time spent in education reduces the probability that person will commit a crime.

For most adults, however, ‘education’ in a formal sense will not be part of their lives once they remove their mortarboard and buckle down to the 9-5. This is why I am starting this blog. Because I think that thinking, and opening up a discussion about topics is something too many people are lacking. Why is it the cultural norm to vegetate in front of the television, to discuss with vigor the latest drama on ‘TOWIE’, yet debating current affairs is almost a taboo?

This blog will be a soapbox, as it were, a space for thought, ideas, and explorations. Thanks for reading.