Travel, as we knew it

I recently heard the AirBnb CEO proclaim that ‘Travel as we knew it is over. And it’s never coming back.’

My first reaction to it was “Yes, of course” because of everything around us that makes it so self-evident. Then, as the statement settled, it transported me (pun unintended) into a whole different space.

Travel as we knew it felt like a basic human need, we all responded to. One of being mobile; exploring the world; meeting people; having different experiences that challenged, nourished and shaped our way of being. It was an escape to find joy in the unfamiliar settings of a new place that evoked something special from our senses.

Travel was a promise. A promise we made to our loved ones in our desperate attempts at proving that we still cared. A promise that when fulfilled, or otherwise created memories that made our lives feel worthwhile.

Travel was a pilgrimage. The path we took to reach a place where we embraced hardship to eventually find the divine in front of and within us.

Travel was ultimately The Journey that took us from way of being, to another. The person that completed the journey was not the same as the one who started it. We took on the smells, sights and sounds of the place

s we met. We became a little bit like the strangers we met. We sometimes became a stranger ourselves. We always came back to where we belonged, but with a new knowing of our home.

We were able to do that because deep within we knew that we could make the journey without worrying about our very basic safety and wellbeing. We may still be able to do that if we are willing to hazard the risks and that’s the one thing this pandemic is increasingly making us averse to. It’s hard to imagine when we can ever experience the same sense of abandon regarding travel. The freedom of simply buying a ticket to a place of our choice and landing there. Just like that. The loss of that nomadic freedom is a loss of the sense of wonder that can be central to our wellbeing and thriving as a species. We need to be awed by something bigger than us and travel was one of the most ancient means we knew to get that ‘hit’.

But there is hope, the CEO said. People’s travel preferences are changing. They are more open to traveling a couple of hundred miles to a place or community they can trust than longer distances that create more uncertainty. In fact, we are all craving for the proverbial getaway but there isn’t one on the horizon. So, his company is realigning their strategy to meet people where they are. They expect to change and evolve as the landscape of our world changes.

When I heard that, it struck me what this pandemic is doing by hanging around as long as it has. It’s acting like a great leveler of all life on the planet. It is making us like any other species on the planet which is only concerned with its survival and immediate needs. Tigers don’t plan vacations or career changes. Neither do fish or birds. They just do what they do. AirBnB cut millions of dollars of their marketing budget, because the market they knew is history. What definition of success are they going to market to? This adjustment is disheartening and terrible to consider. The notion that we may no longer have the ability to design and construct a life of our aspirations. Even the thought that we could hold our aspirations as legitimate and meaningful seems absurd, as they were born on a different planet. On a planet, where we didn’t walk out of home every day wondering if we would get infected. On a planet where we never first checked if the person approaching us is wearing a mask.

Instead, now we find ourselves working in the present; only thinking as far as the next invoice if you are a business; or the next salary if you are an employee. It is like a great reset button was accidentally hit and now it can’t be reset again!

When we consider that, it seems directly in conflict with the one instrument that we largely seem to have built modern society with – Ambition. With the capital ‘A.’ The objects of our ambition as we know it were all constructed in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. Diligently shooting at the targets that our ambitions of yesterday constructed can make us look stupid very quickly.

As I was writing this, I was interrupted by my son. He wanted me to make a particular kind of toast as an evening snack. That typifies my experience of the lockdown. Being here now. Learning to blend with what is; one day at a time. I don’t mean to sound all apocalyptic about it, but the fact is we are in some kind of a great societal transit and our compass is all wonky. It doesn’t know what it needs to set itself to anymore. The so-called ‘new normal’ may only be two degrees off our original course or it may be off by hundreds. Only two things feel true at the moment - ‘we don’t know’ and ‘we’re on the move.’ As a person challenged by ambition for most of my life, I am in paradise right now. I don’t even know what I need to be ambitious about anymore! In a strange, dark way it feels very liberating. I can write stuff like this and not worry about what might happen.

Yet, I also recognize that as we settle into our extant drift, we need to accept what is and find a way to carve out a new space for ambition and enterprise. A space that’s crafted by a hand that no longer holds yesterday’s pencils.

Finding the infinitely small spot where that space will take birth is the new journey. As we stand fully in the ground of our being, called by a horizon we cannot yet see, all we can do is heed the call and take the next step. The road is not yet there.

The only thing that can guide us is the wisdom of billions of years of evolution as a species and as a planet that we hold at a cellular level. Our ancestors have faced, succumbed and overcome so many more existential challenges and have left the footprints of hopeful pursuit within us. That’s the source of our resilience. A source that cannot be activated by a switch or lit by a fire. It’s also true that we have all come in touch with that source at some point in our lives and have been taken to places of great creativity and meaning. And the most beautiful thing about it is – we don’t really know how we got there.

The CEO was absolutely right. Travel as we knew it is over and it’s not coming back.

Thank God for that!