Son of BEHEMOTH
So it begins – the Son Of
BEHEMOTH. This is a different sort of journey for me. Obviously the mechanism is the same – a giant metal tube full of wires, champagne and the little people but this is for me a dramatically different journey. BEHEMOTH was the end of the beginning – on that journey I achieved top tier status with AA and HHonors so on SOB I will be travelling as a passenger with status already – rose petals will be strewn before me as I walk and I will be upgraded to suites in every hotel with free flowing champagne at every stage of the journey.
But it keeps coming back to that word – journey. What exactly is a journey? It has many names and some of my favourites are below
Arabic: سَفْرَه، رِحْلَه
Chinese (Simplified): 旅程
Chinese (Traditional): 旅程
Dutch: reis
Estonian: teekond
Finnish: matka
Greek: ταξίδι, διαδρομή
Hungarian: út; utazás
Icelandic: ferðalag
Indonesian: perjalanan
Italian: viaggio
Japanese: 旅行
Korean: 여행
Latvian: brauciens; ceļojums
Lithuanian: kelionė
Polish: podróż
Romanian: călă¬torie
Russian: поездка; путешествие
Slovak: cesta
Slovenian: potovanje
Spanish: viaje
So many name really reflect the complexity of what a journey is. It is however easily defined in the dictionary:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by www.dictionary.com
jour•ney - [jur-nee] noun, plural -neys, verb, -neyed, -ney•ing.
1. a traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long time; trip: a six-day journey across the desert.
2. a distance, course, or area traveled or suitable for traveling: a desert journey.
3. a period of travel: a week's journey.
4. passage or progress from one stage to another: the journey to success.
–verb (used without object)
5. to make a journey; travel.
[Origin: 1175–1225; ME journee day < OF < VL *diurnāta a day's time, day's work, etc., equiv. to L diurn(us) daily + -āta, fem. of -ātus -ATE1; see -ADE1 ]
—Related forms
jour•ney•er, noun
|
For me though the key definition above is
passage or progress from one stage to another. My travels since I changed jobs in May 2006 have been “lumpy” a smallish number of big trips around the world or around Asia. A lot of flights and a lot of miles but not a sequence of recurrent events. As such much of the travel has been about
an exploration of the experience of the journey rather than just a distance travelled.
But now on some levels I had moved beyond that. At the conclusion of BEHEMOTH I was “an experienced traveller” so the wonder had left me – not to bring me to a state of being jaded with travel – but there was not as much to experience as new. That in a way disappointed me in planning SOB. If the wonder and excitement was gone then was there a point to the journey and in that sense I do mean the traverse form point A to point B – was it simply going to become that to me. What journey can I make from this travel? What is there new that I can experience aside from simply a different place to eat and sleep? After having moved from journeyer to traveller what can I bring new to this trip?
To my joy there were two answers to this question. Firstly the journey to the journey itself was more complex than a cryptex wrapped in an enigma hidden in a room you can only find when you really need it (you all now my love of the Potter books so you will excuse me that). The second answer was the most obvious one and to my discredit I really should have spotted this first. I
am embarking on this journey
as a statused traveller – so this time I actually get the benefits that I “worked so hard” to achieve.
So the journey begins but the starting point is not the journey – but the journey to the journey itself…
Linear Mode
