Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes me become the person I am today, and whether this version of me is the person I’ve wanted myself to be.
Travelling opens up a window for me to see some other sides of myself. And after I’m back from travelling, I’ve always had the feeling that I was another person when I was on the road. But which one is me?
Or to be precise, I think right now I’m neither the person I used to be before travelling, nor the “new me” that I discovered while travelling. Maybe I’m choosing who I really want to be; or I can never be any of these ever again. Because those moments have passed.
There is no doubt that many people like travelling. And there is this mesmerizing feeling that once you’re away from home long enough, you start to see a different version of yourself which will keep you reminiscing after you’re home. You want to be that “YOU” again – the person that seems to be fading away after your journey has ended.
But is this “YOU” really you?
When you are travelling, you don’t really have an identity, especially if you’re travelling solo. Well yes, you’re a tourist, a traveller, an adventurer, an explorer.. whatever you call it. But you don’t have a social role. You’re no longer (labeled as) someone’s daugther or son, someone’s friend, someone’s sweetheart, someone’s employee, someone’s someone… You’re no one. You don’t have any responsibility. You’re not responsible for anyone, anything, except for yourself. You almost leave no trace for whatever you do, because you’re only a passing visitor; and so as anyone you meet on the road, they are only passersby in your life, they are “identityless” to you.
Is this why we like travelling? Because this is the time when you can be the most selfish version of you. Because you can think about yourself and yourself only, while back home with all the roles that you’re carrying and performing, you never really put yourself or your need in your top priority.
When you’re travelling, you are nothing. And for the same reason, you can be anything.
Be anything you want. Be the person you’ve always wanted to be. Abandoning all the roles and identities, you’re almost back to primal. This can be a process of unlearning and recreating. This can be a reborn.
Is that true?
When I was travelling, I always thought: this is the person I really am.
Now that I’m home for months, maybe too long, long enough to make me become a practical and rational person again, I start asking myself: how real was this other version of me?
Can I still be ME without all the social roles and identities that I’ve been given or carrying along, all the things that have cultivated and shaped the person I’ve become? Is it true that the reason why I like travelling, and like being my travelling-self more, is that I can be guiltlessly selfish and self-centered without my social roles? And is the reason why we find it so hard to re-adapt to our lives after travelling, is that we are reluctant to take back up our roles and responsibilities; refusing to once again be what the society has shaped us, and be what everybody else has thought what we were.
But we are our roles, we are our responsibilities, and we are what everybody else thinks we are. These altogether have formed the idea of ME.
And so after all, is the idea of leaving only an escape? An escape of our lives and identities?
Or if I’m bold enough to say goodbye to the life and identity that I’ve already built up, I can really be whatever I want..
Keep Walking On 