“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” This quote came from the poet John Donne. His quote hasn’t a single interpretation, but several, because each of us can find our own personal meaning. Mine came thanks to my dad, who has repeated this phrase since I was a little girl. He wanted to teach me an important principle: we are not born to live on a desert island with only one inhabitant. We are born to have relationships, to meet other humans, and share pieces of our lives together.
Often we compare life to a train journey with many stops. During this journey, we meet many people. Some of them get off, others get on the train. With these individuals, we share a part of our trip, while the landscape through the window changes continuously.
How can our life be, if we were completely alone in the train? We’ll reach our destination without knowing anything different from when we take part of the trip on the train; we are the same person as before. Don’t you think the trip would be better if we faced it with our family? Friends? Met a stranger smiling to us? A stranger that wants to know us and offers us a drink? Maybe these strangers could talk about their homes, countries, jobs, feelings and/or fears. And maybe, gathering with these strangers can change our perspective forever and help us to improve ourselves.
That’s what surrounds a journey: exploring, sharing, coming home with something new, something that changes our perspective, something that make us a better person. That’s what I look for every time I close my suitcase, get on a plane and get off in a foreign land. My eyes full of astonishment, never ending curiosity, a heart open and ready to receive a culture, traditions, a story different from my own. Not better, not worse; just different. The meeting with this diversity enriches my culture and my story. Anaïs Nain said, “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” It’s through this type of meeting of souls that we can find our own rainbow.
Irene Blog 