Guest Post: Destined For Travel

Written by Sergen. Find out more about the (Co-)Authors here.

The day you stop moving is the day the world stops turning. Our DNA contains the ancestral nomadic way of life that is locked beneath the modern cultural tendencies that keep us from moving through nature in balance and harmony. Modern humans roamed this planet that we call Earth for more than two hundred thousand years. They were moving like waves hitting sands with the currents of nature's laws. Weather, migrating animals, and many more reasons to keep moving through the landscapes of the virgin lands that cover this vast planet. But the most important one was; Curiosity. This was what made us uncover the codes hidden beneath the surface and understand the laws of the universe we live in. We seek adventure and discovery as hope was always over the horizon.

Today we are locked by borders and the different political struggles that do nothing to benefit our own well-being or freedom. Containing ourselves into Hermit Crab shells of ideologies and protecting ourselves from the unknowns of strangers. The comforts of modern life and the sub-sufficient freedoms we think we acquire by living in some parts of this world seem futile in giving life meaning. Since life is for living and for the living only.  I found resistance in myself towards leaving this comfort zone and experiencing the world for myself. The tales of strange lands were always tolled through lenses of great distortion and viewpoints of certain types of people we found ourselves relating more. I needed to break all these lenses and look into this world and its people with my own two naked eyes.

Taken by Lauren Stewart 

Georgian Mountains. There and back again.

It was my first time leaving my beautiful country of Turkey. Georgia as a country was one that I never considered myself to travel in all my life. Until the summer of 2023. The idea came to me from a friend who circumstantially had a life better than me. She was able to travel and see the world in a way that I could not do. I took inspiration as I witnessed her travel to the city called Tbilisi. I was uneducated about this country before this time. I had an urge to learn and see this totally new country which was in my peripheral vision. Now it was the center of all my attention. I did a fair bit of research about the place but I kept myself from learning too much and just having another lens added to my vision before I went there. I only bought a one-way ticket to Tbilisi after that.

My original plan was to travel through Turkey hitchhiking my way to Georgia but the timing and my profession declared it was a better option to fly there. I had no plan other than that I would be in this city in September of 2023. No plan on where to stay or whom I would spend my time with. I had total trust in my abilities of discovery and my love for adventure.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said:

„Along the journey, we commonly forget its goal. Almost every vocation is chosen and entered upon as a means to a purpose but is ultimately continued as a final purpose in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent stupidity in which we indulge ourselves.“ - Friedrich Nietzsche: „Der Wanderer und sein Schatten“ (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister, Part III)

I indulged in all the stupidity I could muster up. The journey itself was the savior that unsheathed her broadsword and slayed the dragon that was the prison that I was in, in my own beautiful country.

My journey took me to places that I could never imagine. The moment I lay my eyes upon the snowy peaks of the mountains, they were calling for my name. I felt this irresistible force of nature calling me up and higher toward the sky. My awestruck lips uttered the name; Kazbegi. First I came by car then I started walking, and after climbing up the hills and valleys covering the landscape. The more I climbed the peek seemed to get further away from me. I felt like I was climbing backward. The heights were dizzying and the beautiful vistas were vibrating with the sounds of the eagles. I decided to stop going more since if I did not stop I knew I would never be able to survive the cold treacherous mountain. It was a challenge to say this was it. I had to return back down. Back down following my steps back. Winding down into the pillow I put my head on since I was born.

But I did not go back empty-handed. I brought back the mountain inside my heart carrying it with me forever in a form that only my own two eyes could decipher. It snows and storms in me and I feel the rooted freedom staying stone strong. And from the mountains, I walked into the sea in total darkness as my naked body felt the warm embrace of the Blacksea that held her hands stretched out before me now. Sirens call me deep beneath the waves as my eyes stare into the sea as if they were fixed by steel wires down into the hearth of the ocean. The salty kiss wrapped my lightless body and gave myself back to me.

My personal experience of this poetic and magical trip was truly a life-changing one. I couldn’t thank enough each person I met there in Tbilisi, Kazbegi, Gori, and Batumi. The soul of traveling is about life itself and how life can be found again each morning with a different perspective. The wise people understand that life is for living and incorporate it into each action they take. The range in which our freedoms roam is where we discover the meaning or drown in meaningless thoughts of action. I took my action and it woke me up. Now I can only think about climbing higher and higher mountains and swimming deeper and deeper into the sea. Only then my soul will be free.

 Portrait by Lauren Stewart