What did travelling the world bring to you?
Self empowerment through the realization that wherever I am in the world, whoever I am with, I am always the same person. Some days I am successful and happy and others I really am not, but those that feel like a complete waste of time are merely the hard work and practice for the better ones. I know that the higher the highs, the lower the lows.
Do you think travelling made you a better person?
I’d say yes. Definitely. However, the reason I am better is because I got to know myself better, I learnt that I am merely the product of my childhood, parents, and then the effects of the environment in which I place myself. However, my re-actions to my environment are based on how I act in new scenarios, which, for me, were learnt from my parents. So in reality, you ask if I am a better person, I’d say I am nearer to the maturity of my parents as a result, with a few learned lessons that might enable me to advance them in some ways – but its hard to know if that’s for the better or worse. This is why parenting is so important in society, and what makes a great parent, is what they do, not what they say, because a child will copy their parents actions, not their words.
Will seeing other country’s and meeting other people will enrich my life?
You know I will say yes to this…but you’d have to be mental to just stop and knock on someones door for a chat, that’s why you have to do the acceptable thing and meet someone in a bar, or in the park when they have time on their hands, not when they are busy rushing around on the street. OR do what I did and make up a project, because people can understand projects and we all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves and then work it all around that. Think about door to door sales people, they chat to strangers every day on the door, so you, my friend, just have to knock on peoples doors and try and sell them something, or better still, give them something away for free (but not food – they will think you are trying to poison them).
Did travel deepen your meaning of life?
Yes, totally. It opened me up so much and I learnt that because I think something is wrong for me, it doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t for them. Smoking for example, I hate smokers, everyone knows its bad for you and yet half the people in the world still do it. Why? Because you get one life and you might as well enjoy it. They’re not addicted like they tell you, I mean, if you were to put them on a desert island without cigarettes they’d still survive wouldn’t they? No, the problem lies with all of us that even if we know something is bad (for me it’d be drinking, or driving too fast, or riding a motorbike in London), we delude ourselves that we are immortal but the reality is we don’t know what we want most of the time.
I’ll answer this one, “What do we want?” as I imagine you’ll be curious on this. The answer is that we want to be unconditionally loved by the people who are close to us in life, we want to overlook our short term lows and concentrate on longer term highs. Those longer term highs are our personal creative expression, be that art, singing, writing while we live. Then when we get older and we have achieved everything for ourselves, we want to set something up, a foundation, charity etc… that provides for others what we missed from our own childhood. All of this, ultimately, is aimed at providing us with the most valuable commondity in the world, and that is ‘piece of mind’ which comes from knowing how we fit into society.
Do you plan to travel again?
I chose not to travel again until ‘Around the World in 80 Handbags’ was finished, because I wanted to keep the clarity of my last trip in my mind as I finished the book. In fact, I have hardly been out of the UK at all. However, now that stage of my life is completed I do plan to go to away again.
Do you plan to write another book?
Yes, I’ve already written the first draft. It’s similar to the first one in that it’s about meeting people in an un-usual way and it’s based on my diaries. I aim for it to be out by summer 2011. Subscribe to the newsletter at the top right of this page and that’s where the latest news of it will come out.
2008 Interview with George Alagiah, BBC World News
