Buckminster Fuller, the genius who invented the geodesic dome and coined the time period “Spaceship Earth,” traveled a lot that he wore three watches. He wore one on every wrist and carried a vest pocket watch. One instructed the time the place he was at present. One other instructed the time at his subsequent vacation spot. And the third instructed the time at his house base in Carbondale, Illinois.
Bucky traveled virtually continuously, lecturing wherever he was invited all over the world. He was an amazing believer within the worth of journey. He believed we’re born to journey by nature, by our evolution. We’re tailored to it as a species, constructed for it. And human historical past would positive vouch for the concept that journey is an inherent a part of human nature.
“Human beings have been born with legs, not roots,” he mentioned.
I’ve little question that his in depth touring helped him to type the entire earth perspective that led him to so many outstanding discoveries.


I share his perception within the significance of journey for human beings. I’m a passionate, lifelong lover of journey, however I do admit to a robust lazy streak. And the longer I keep in a single place, the stronger it will get.
I like to take a seat round about as a lot as anybody. There’s part of me that wishes to take a seat on the sofa and never be bothered by something. That tends to be my first response to any invitation or requirement to go anyplace. It’s simply inertia, the essential animal impulse of not desirous to be disturbed.
Don’t get me mistaken, staying in a single place might be nice. I like to savor the expertise of being settled. Staying put might be very constructive, for resting, restoring, considering, or carrying out issues. However after a very long time staying in a single place, stagnation begins to slide in. Everybody wants a break typically.
It’s not all the time simple to know when the time is true to interrupt the cycle and go touring. However once I do discover myself touring once more, even quick distances or to locations I’ve been many instances, I’m all the time shocked on the highly effective impact of simply altering locations. I’m reminded once more of the hazard of stagnation from staying in a single place for too lengthy at a time.
I believe we are inclined to underestimate how a lot energy the place the place we’re situated has over us. Having grown up in American tradition, I’m pleased with my sense of individualism. I’m no conformist, I inform myself, no mere leaf within the wind, managed by parts of society or my setting. However once I change my setting and go someplace completely different, I’m shocked by how a lot I really feel modified.
And it’s not solely that I really feel completely different, although feeling good is itself enough motive to journey. However when I’m in a distinct place, I actually am completely different. An goal observer might see that I really behave in a different way in a brand new setting.
We’re every the middle of our personal universe, and it’s pure to consider ourselves as bigger within the scheme of issues than we actually are. A human being is a really small a part of the earth. Even our mightiest mountains are barely seen in photos of the earth from house. We’re tiny particles on the floor of a comparatively giant planet. We’re small in comparison with the forces that envelop us.
Have you ever ever seen the best way iron filings all line as much as level towards a magnet? Once I was in grade college I had a goofy toy known as “Wooly Willy.” It consisted of a bit of cardboard printed with a face that was totally hairless and beardless. By means of a transparent plastic protecting you may choose up iron filings with a magnetic stylus, drag them over and drop them on the face, to make a moustache or a beard, or hair on the pinnacle. It was foolish, however enjoyable for a fourth grader. I used to be fascinated by the best way the iron filings would snap to consideration and line up once you introduced the magnet close to them. It gave me a metaphor for a way tiny we human beings are in relation to the earth’s gravity and different parts of nature.
Once I journey, I get a way of the huge scale of the earth, the mountains and oceans, the forests and the cities, and all of the issues I see. As compared, I’m tiny. I’m humbled. I really feel like a type of iron filings, only a tiny factor amongst these huge entities and forces, held firmly in place by gravity. I’m not impartial of them. Quite the opposite, I’m drastically influenced by all the issues that encompass and envelop me.
Once I stare at an amazing mountain peak, it’s simple that it’s a lot higher than I’m. It’s hundreds of thousands of instances vaster in measurement, and has endured for hundreds of thousands of years. I’ll really feel completely different in that place, in sight of that mountain, than in every other, due to the ability of that place.
When in Rome, I actually do “do because the Romans do,” to a point anyway. We’re drastically moved and affected by our environments. Wherever I’m, I retain my very own individuality, however I additionally turn out to be a part of the place, and I’m completely different in that place than once I’m at house.
Touring additionally adjustments the best way you’re feeling and behave as a result of you’ve gotten a distinct perspective when you’re touring. Understanding that you’re in a brand new place and that you’ll make many discoveries there makes you extra alert than once you undergo the day assuming that you simply’ve seen already every thing already, so that you don’t actually concentrate.
The truth that we’re completely different individuals after we are elsewhere underlines to me the worth and significance of journey. It helps me perceive my place on the planet, to attach and really feel that I’m a part of one thing bigger than myself.
Your humble reporter,
Colin Treadwell