I believe that all the writers that we have read about have crossed physical and mental borders, some that are harder than others. Then there are others who try to cross spiritual borders as well. Iyer is one of those travel writers that try to cross that spiritual border and he is one of my favorite writers from this class. Steves is another travel writer who crosses that spiritual border. Shukman had to cross a great physical and mental order when he traveled to Chernobyl. Seriously who would even want to go there? he had to have some great mental strength to even think about going there. To even go to a foreign place you have to overcome some great mental borders. You do not know very much about the place and you are going to travel to some place new.
I believe that I am going to come across physical mental and spiritual borders. This summer I am going to Cancun with my family. That is going to be a very different experience for me and it is a physical border that I am going to have to cross. Now the mental border I might not have to cross because I see where we are staying and I am happy about free drinks. The spiritual border I might have to cross as well because I am going to have to determine if some of the shenanigans I could get into is ok.
The one border that our writers have crossed and the border that I know I will have to cross is the physical border. It is as simple as stepping into a new country, but it can be as tough as jumping across a five foot break on a mountain where I could fall to my death. I hope I do not come to that point, but who knows what will happen. All of our writers have crossed that physical border and I know I have a lot more borders to cross before my time is up on this planet.
Mike, I think you did well at identifying the major types of borders to cross. At some point in our life, we all experience several different borders, many of which may be at the same time. I think Rick Steve does an excellent job of demonstrating the crossing of spiritual borders. He goes into third world countries and spends time with the people. While he is there, he tries to help them in some way. At the time he does not realize that they actually help him too because he gets a good feeling from what he is doing. I think this is a spiritual border because the situation impacts him in a way that he wants to do more of a specific thing. In this case it is helping people.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteIt is critical for people to overcome the mental or spiritual borders as you have mentioned when traveling to places like Chernobyl. If we remain trapped in our own beliefs we may not emerge ourselves in what is right in front of us. I personally believe this is the hardest border to overcome, but in the end can be the most beneficial. Crossing physical borders, to me, is the easiest since we can do this daily; however, like you pointed out not all physical borders are easy since it could involve a 5 foot jump.
I've never heard someone mention the spiritual border in their journal, so I found your inclusion of it here interesting. You go into more detail about the physical border, so I would like for you to have expanded on this idea of the spiritual border a bit more.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard someone mention the spiritual border in their journal, so I found your inclusion of it here interesting. You go into more detail about the physical border, so I would like for you to have expanded on this idea of the spiritual border a bit more.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteThis is some good content! I think that you hit the three main areas of borders exceptionally well. I wish I was headed to Mexico this summer! That sounds like it should be a blast! I like how you explore the thought of borders as more than just crossing the borders of a new country. There are tons of physical borders that aren't thought about. Overall, I enjoyed reading! Nice points!