Why do we travel and what. makes us venture into the hazards of the unknown? We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ‘ourselves. We travel to 1) open our hearts and eyes and lear more ‘bout the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what itte we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts Sof the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again — to slow time down and get taken in, and lose ourselves. Travel isa wondrous thing that guides us toward a better balance of wisdom and compassion — of seeing the world clearly, and yet feeling it tru. For seing without feeling can be ‘ uncaring; while feeling without seeing can be bind. Yet fo me the fst reat joy of traveling is simply the hoy of leaving all my beliefs and certainties at home, and seeing everything | thought | knew indifferent light, and from a crooked angle The sovereign ffeedom of traveling comes from the fact that it whirs 5 you around and 2) turns you upside down, and 3) stands everthing you took for granted on its head. fa diploma can famously be a passport (to @ journey though hard realism), then a passport can be a diploma (fora crash course in cultural relatvism). And the fist lesson we lea (on the road, whether we like itor not, is how provisional and provincial 0 are the things we imagine to be universal \We travel, then in pat just to shake up our complacences by seeing all the moral and politcal ugencies, the lfeanddeath dlemmas, that we seldom have to face at home. Travel is the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places. and saving them from abstraction ' and ideology. And in the process, we also get saved from abstraction ‘ourselves, and come to see how much we can bring to the places we Visit, and how much we can become a kind of cater pigeon transporting back and forth what every culture needs. For in closed or impoverished places, lke Pagan or Lhasa or Havana, |Weafe the ejes and ears '0 [ofthe people we meet, their only contact withthe world outside. One ofthe challenges of travel, therefore, is leaming how to import — and export — dreams with tenderness, them to the meanings below. Read the text. Look at the phrases in bold and try to understand their meaning from the context. Then match By now, all of us have heard the old Marcel Proust line about how the Feal voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new paces but iniseeing With new eyes: . Yet one of the subtler beauties of travel is 95, that it enabies you to bring new eyes tothe people you encounter. Thus, even as holidays help you appreciate your wn home more — nat least by seeing it through a distant admirer’ eyes — they help you bring new ‘appreciative — distant — eyes tothe places you visit. For mary of us traveis a quest not just forthe unknown, but the unknowing | atleast, 40 travein search of an innocent eye that can retum me to a more innocent Sel. tend to believe more abroad than | do at home and I tend to be ‘more easily excted abroad, and even kinder. In that spit, its vtaly important to remember that al travels a two-ay transaction, a point intrinsic to travel that we al too easy forget. For what 45 we often ignore when we go abroad is that we are objects of scrutiny as, ‘much 2s the people we scrutinise, and _We ar being consumed bythe cultures We'consume’ . At the very least, we are objects of ‘speculation (and even desire) who can seem as exotic tothe people around us as they do tous. 50 ‘Travel, at hear, is a kindof ltechanging ritual. A desperate way for our adem secular selves to latch onto some sense of spirituality that enriches us 3s people. A chance to share something meaningful with others while keeping our minds mobile and avake. AS Harvard Philosopher George Santayana wrote, “There is wisdom in tuming as 55 ‘often 2s possible from the familiar tothe unfamiliar; it keeps the mind nimble; it kils prejudice, and it fosters humout” Tae, inthe end, is @ heightened state of anareness, in which we are receptive, undimmed by famiiarty and ready tobe transformed. That is why the best trips, ke the best adventures, never really end. © * venture * ignorance * disperse * from a crooked angle * sovereign * whirl sb around + famously * relativism * provisional * provincial * abstraction * ideology + impoverished * subtle * appreciative * intrinsic * scrutinise + secular + latch onto T]_] become young fools again ato attach oneself to sth more nimble * prejudice + receptive eee poner © undimmed [31 teeling without seeing can b to retum to a silly youthful state. be blind dD Dales decd a 6 IER, work with » partner [41] shake up our complacencies 0 get caried away ici and discuss what the author's [ELI ttobe) objects of scrutiny & eae oe opinion about tr the [Eaten onto some sense of Giue ites ieee phrases in the, your answer.