Above the clouds and below the sky, the roads are unfolding balls of string. Long and winding, they take up whole islands upon which mountains are hills, and oceans are ponds, and whole settlements are condensed to tiny squares of land. Unfathomably small compared to what we know, this is what people mean when they talk about perspective.
Alas, we’re all guilty of letting the ego take charge and thinking that life, for which we know it, is equivocal to existence, for which it is, but one must only take a step back to see how grand* the world truly is, in every sense of the word…
*(Grand, but inaccessible to many owing to what we need to increase, yet what is seemingly destined to decrease, money).
Travel is made so inaccessible by the people in power because they don’t want us to see that there’s more out there. If we could travel freely, then we would be savvy to the beauty of the world and, in our refusal to subscribe to their limited ways of thinking, would finally come to understand that there is so much more to life than power and money (see also: corruption).
Money is freedom, yet it is also the source of our collective unhappiness.
Representing far more than the paper it’s printed on, money symbolises what we are trying to escape from: a life within which we let our ego decide what we want, all the while ignoring what our soul needs. To blame for this? The age of capitalism and consumerism that we find ourselves caught up in, an age that dictates to us all how we should and shouldn’t live our lives…
Who made life so complicated?
When we go on holiday, we can’t just relax on the beach with a towel anymore. Having to walk through hotel complexes to reach beaches that are verging on being (illegally) privatised, we’re sold sunbeds at £15 a pop, and boat excursions, because our fear of missing out is so great that we can’t explore the land that isn’t yet even a quarter explored before we’re lining the pockets of yet another greedy billionaire to whom the law doesn’t apply. ‘Queue up here to have the best experience of your holiday. Just ignore the fallen trees that we had to fell to bring it to you…’
By capitalising on the essentials of survival, they subject us to the perils of existence.
It’s a recurring theme. Despite having it so easy, we have access to the whole world, we take our privilege for granted. Getting so caught up in thinking about all the things that we don’t have, we end up forgetting about all the things that we do have. Forsaking an abundance mindset for a scarcity mindset, we constantly yearn for ‘More. More. More.’
It’s such yearning that sees a 40-hour working week on minimum wage being the norm for all too many of us. Despite our time being the most precious asset we have, we so readily exchange it for money (the most socially constructed asset we have). And, while it’s so nonsensical, there’s no way around it.
Although having access to this world is a human right, without having money to pay for the plane, train, or boat fare to get there, and without having money to afford to pay for the accommodation once you’re there, you can’t explore it. Some people will therefore get to the end of their life having not ventured outside of the town within which they were born, let alone the country.
Trapped in a bubble, some people will never realise how much wonder and beauty lies out there, hence the phrase ‘the cost-of-living crisis.’ It’s a crisis because there should be no cost to living, yet there is, and it’s extortionate, both in terms of money and happiness.
If you want to migrate to another country, you’re demonised by being presented with a racist rhetoric disguised as ‘patriotic concern’… A holiday is fine (it’s encouraged, in fact, because it pays into the tourism industry and therefore feeds capitalism), but moving countries is a no-go (unless you’re from the West and white, then it’s allowed).
Every other animal in the world understands that our right to roam is just that, a right, yet the labour that we, as humans, are forced to endure to access that right is extortionate.
Alas, how would it feel to live as we were born to live? To spend our little and oh so incredibly precious time we have exploring every corner of this masterpiece we call home?…
One can but dream.
Portfolio of Hope 