Writers and the need for expeditions

The exposure to different cultures and different peoples not only inspires empathy and understanding in the heart of a writer, it lays bare the universal similarities of this human experience, adding depth and colour to the stories she tells. For there is more to life than the familiar and humdrum happenings in one’s daily existence.

The recent surge of intolerance – religious and cultural – pervading our country and the entire world today stems from the dearth of exposure in the goings on in the lives of people who we perceive as strange, because of their tongue or because of how they choose to worship.

Magaret Mead said, “As the traveler who has been once from home is wiser than he who has never left his own door step, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinise more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.”

Writers ought to be hungry to see the world beyond their limited sphere of contact. There is a vastness of the world that cannot be explored if one remained in his quiet abode.

The lot of the writer or storyteller is to go abroad and make her sojourn come alive to her audience through her tales as though they were there with her. Travel opportunities for writers would enrich their experiences and expose them to their country, continent and world at large and enlighten them on why we are so different but yet so uniquely knitted as one people.

Image source:transport day newspaper