Words of Mediocre Wisdom

Until last year I've never really been in a place where people don't speak my language, or rather more accurately I don't speak theirs. Which sounds really arrogant and snobbish I admit because that is really how I felt but travel humbles you. After being in the same place for years, seeing the same people, eating the same foods, doing the same things you forget that there is more to the globe than your little circle. That also sounds silly and arrogant but for a while I found myself somewhat significant, that I mattered and that the things that happened within that tiny circle was all that mattered.

There is actually something sort of therapeutic about sitting in a park or whatever just watching people go about their days without understanding why it is they're running around. Sometimes they try to talk to you and all you can do is smile and communicate in the most basic way. But then it made me think, how many times have I been stuck in a conversation where I don't understand or care what the other person is saying, so they end up saying whatever the hell they want and I end up saying whatever the hell I want and we get nowhere because the two things aren't correlated in the least way! Doesn't that make you appreciate more the conversations you have in signs and broken languages because it means you're making an effort to talk to the other person?

Back to the travels... I left home thinking I could find pieces of my soul in the places I would visit but now I think that a piece of every place, every person and every thing I encountered has become a part of me. I did not find myself in everyone but I found everyone in myself. And I have greater appreciation for their cultures, beliefs, emotions, character, heritage and just their very beings. Personally, it made me realise how much there is worth fighting for, and believe me, I know how corny that sentence was even before I typed it up but it needed to be said.