Wednesday, May 03, 2006

The Journey

I've been reading 'The 8.55 To Baghdad'. The author, Andrew Eames, is retracing a journey that Agatha Christie made on the Orient Express back in 1928. It was a journey that completely changed her life and I came across an interesting extract in the book:

The prospect of the journey itself undoubtedly filled her with excitement, but she'd just been through a period of great personal difficulty, and in a rare moment of self-revelation in her autobiography she shows how well aware she was of the imminent journey as a deeper personal test. Her life had reached a crossroads where she could either cling to the familiar, or else choose to strike out on her own. And she chose the latter. 'Now I was going by myself,' she wrote. 'I should find out what sort of person I was - whether I had become entirely dependent on other people as I had feared.'

Eames goes on to write: 'This is an acute and honest perception, because solo journeys can do that; they can strip away all the edifice of a created life and open the traveller to new possibilites. Within the structures of the home environment your self-image is built on the foundations of accent, friends, family, education, clothing, profession, size of house, brand of car, etc.

When you are on the road, however, the relationships you make with others no longer rely on all those perceived signals, but come down to your personality alone. It's an unfettering, liberating experience for those who can cope with it.

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