This blog entry is based on the class discussion about the reading ‘Voyage around my room’. To recall, this reading was about an author narrating an experience where he decided to look at his room, a very common place where he spent most of his time, from a new perspective. He looked at anything around him with a new eye, trying to push aside everything he already knew and seeing what else could be seen. He discovers that one could marvel to such a simple thing as a bed simply by wondering about all the events that a bed can host. To resume his point, one could say that De Maistre argued that travel and the feelings we experienced when travelling were not necessarily because we saw new things but rather because we were in an unfamiliar environment. He believed that a similar effect could be triggered by simply looking at a familiar environment with unfamiliar eyes.
Does travel really consist of a simple state of mind? I believe not. The argument of novelty being an interpretation of things is very subjective to say the least. I do agree that one could look at one’s surroundings with a new mindset and realize many little things that were left out of the habitual idea we had made ourselves of that element. Then again, I completely disagree with the statement that this could possibly amount to the same feeling as looking at a new feeling. The main difference is that as much as one could want to toss aside all that we know about a habitual place, it still doesn’t alter the fact that on some level, we know that we are someplace familiar. I believe the feeling of being in a different city, even in a different neighbourhood, has no equal. I feel that we feel so differently because of the idea that we re seeing something for the first time. Every time that one encounters a new situation, a new place or even a new person, one soaks in everything possible. Could this be innate human curiosity? Even though my argument still seems as subjective as De Maistre’s, I stand by it, at least as an alternative explanation to the enjoyment of travel.
Posted by: sergiopa | October 8, 2009
Post on Voyage Around my Room
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Its true that every time we encounter a new situation we soak it in like a sponge because it is indeed new and we want to learn everything possible about it, even going into the small details. But we can also look at things with a different mindset and try to look at them as if they were new, from different angles we can perhaps see things we normally wouldn’t have otherwise.
By: evangelia7 on October 12, 2009
at 2:50 am
I think you raise a good point here, Sergio – regardless of our mindset, traveling around our bedrooms will never be EXACTLY like traveling in a new place. Nevertheless, I take de Maistre’s point to be that it could be MORE like traveling than it usually is, and that if we took that approach to our everyday surroundings, our lives would be a lot more interesting.
By: danabath on November 1, 2009
at 4:18 pm