NO.48 "The Art of Travel" Alain de Botton, UK

Every year during the peak travel season, we often hear the saying: "Traveling is about going from a place where you are tired of staying to a place where others are tired of staying." For travel, there are basically two methods, one is to follow the tour group to "get on the bus to sleep, get off to take pictures" style travel, and the other is to travel independently with various free behaviors. No matter which travel method you choose, our starting point is to appreciate the travel scenery. How to travel, why to travel, how to travel, and many other questions have become intractable problems that plague most travelers. In this book "The Art of Travel", the author explains the artistic conception of travel to readers from a new perspective.

This book is different from ordinary travel books. This book is not a travel essay, a guidebook, or a common sense book that discusses the history and significance of travel. What we read is very much like a biographical fragment written in the style of a novel. However, these figures are so important, and we have looked up to their glory in the fields of literature, art, and science; these fragments are so emotional, and they do not record their professional achievements, but leave a map of their journey. , the surprise, resistance, joy and deep thought caused by strange cities and foreign streets.

As I read more deeply, I discovered that the essence of this book is to let us understand how to live a happy life. In the book, the author believes that travel and the study of travel can deepen people's experience of happiness, and this kind of happiness is what ancient Greek philosophers called "the happiness brought by an active life governed by reason." The author writes in the book gives his own definition of active life. The first is the enthusiasm to visit the known environment; the second is the courage to explore the unknown environment; the third is to find the fun in the dealings between oneself and the environment. I think that travel can indeed satisfy this sense of happiness in an all-round way, and conversely, only when it contains rational control and a positive attitude towards life can travel itself achieve perfection.

"The Art of Travel" shows a spiritual aspect about the struggle between life and the environment, and therefore also allows us to see the highest level of travel. The book is divided into five chapters: departure, motivation, scenery, art and return, focusing on describing the author's psychological feelings through travel to different places. When you come to Amsterdam, choose Flaubert as your "guide"; when you come to Madrid, choose Humboldt as your "guide"; when you come to the Lake District of England, choose Wordsworth as your "guide"; when you come to the Sinai Desert, choose Burke as your "guide" "Guide"; when he came to Provence, he chose Van Gogh as his "guide." The author chose various dialogues with these noble souls and the environment he encountered, especially in these dialogues, he wandered between himself and society, individuals and the public, scenery and spirit. Thoughts in time. In the book, the author deliberately writes about traveling as a spiritual experience rather than a physical journey. During the journey to different places, there are also a large number of retrospectives from writers and artists who once lived here, recording the author's own spiritual journey. The author tells readers that travel insight is not the destination itself, but the pleasure we get from traveling may depend more on our state of mind when traveling

With the development of the times, the meaning of travel The meaning goes beyond the happiness discussed by ancient Greek philosophers because the dangers of not traveling are becoming increasingly apparent. At first glance, travelers seem lonely and silent because they are alienated from society, but what does the society they alienate look like? It turns out to be increasingly conservative, rigid, indifferent, and selfish. So, on the contrary, I have traveled across thousands of mountains, my eyes have seen everything, and I have retained an overall understanding of human ecology, so I have also retained enough vision, understanding and sympathy. They have become a warm current in an indifferent society, a kind of macro-level fairness. This makes modern travelers more religious than their ancient counterparts. Travel has become a lifeline for overcoming autism in modern society.

Traveling really makes people think. Because there are few places where it’s easier to listen to your inner voice than on a moving plane, ship, or train. There is a strange connection between the landscape in front of us and the ideas we may have in our minds: grand thinking often requires magnificent landscapes, and new perspectives often arise from unfamiliar places. Among all modes of transportation, trains may be the most conducive to thinking: compared with ships and airplanes, when sitting on a train, we will never worry that the scenery outside the window may be boring; its speed is moderate, and it is not too slow to lose us. Be patient and don’t let us recognize the scenery outside the window too quickly.

As the name suggests, "The Art of Travel" is not a narrative of adventure during travel, nor is it a landscape film written with pen, but a reflection on the meaning of travel. During his travels, he injected a lot of thoughts about culture, art, and even the meaning of life itself, making the originally unremarkable journey full of vivid colors.

When most people travel, instead of studying the local culture, it is better to "escape" from a familiar cultural territory to a strange cultural territory. The author of the book quotes the words of "Meditations": "The only reason why man is unhappy is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room." Because when we first enter a new place, our sensitivity will It leads us to pay attention to many things, and once we have confirmed the function of this place for us, we pay attention to less and less things.

But no matter how much we love traveling, we still have to return to real life and our own home.

If we can bring a sense of traveling around mountains and rivers into our own residence, then we may find that our residence is no less interesting than the mountains and jungles we pass through.