Saturday, March 6, 2010

Why this site?

Kay and I have been travelling for many years, and have many wonderful memories, some amazing adventures ,and stories to tell.Someone once said I should write them down.And when you're sitting around a campfire in the middle of the Namib Desert, ,chatting with a local guy, who opens up and talks of things he experienced when a young man, as a guerilla freedom fighter in then South West Africa,and says to you-
"I have never talked about this with anyone before." it leaves a mark.A deep mark, that I was so privileged to become his confidant.And I asked him to write his stories down, because they should be told.
And it was then I realised that if you don't talk about those events, or write them down, they die with you.And that  some stories should never die, they are so valuable, so precious, because they're unique.If we lose them we can never regain them.

Kay and I are avid readers of every travel story we can find.Our local library is raided for non-fiction travel books.There's a pile of books at home right now.I guess other library users must get pretty frustrated with our library's seemingly sparse selection!
These books are other people's stories.Other people's experiences.They make our world so colorful and more vibrant ,because they wrote about their experiences,enlightening us to places we dream about, but may never see.

And it's not just books.It's the music CD and DVD section also.And I'm lucky to have created the type of business  where I control my own work environment.And with a huge range of music that I have collected along our travels,my workshop will resound with the music of Hungarian Gypsy Bands,South African Gospel music, Zulu or Swazi massed male choirs ,Mongolian throatsinging or Cambodian landmine survivors music groups, etc ....A 5CD changer, and a hit on Random Play and I'm off again.I can travel all day long.....
Clients nowadays walk in and ask "What on earth are you playing today Jim?"
Yeah I know an IPOD can do all that.But somehow putting that CD souvenir on, from one off those far off places, does it for me.My Ipod meanwhile, collects dust!
But it is modern technology that makes a lot of this possible.Hark back to your great grandparents generation.What do you know of their lives and experiences? How much do we know of the tough times many of them experienced? A letter here, a few faded photographs,possibly a family heirloom is all we have of them.A few books perhaps.But the bulk of their individual thoughts , deeds , feelings and experiences have gone with them.
Fast forward today.Twitter, Facebook,cellphones,Internet,YouTube, etc all enabling anyone to record their everyday experiences.Info overload!. But taken for granted. Taken as always being there.
What a load of crap amongst it all!  In the future, instead of archaeologists sifting through the dirt to find an artifact, they'll be sifting through the electronic junk pile middens of our age for that 1 decent piece of info that really means something!
But I do realise that this age, this generation ,does have a great opportunity to leave it's collective  experience, it's social memory behind, in a way and in detail unlike any generation before .In the past, there were a few great travel writers.Some outstanding authors made it into press.And we read them, and cried out for more.
Nowadays, the Internet opens up a whole new world of possibilities.Everyone who travels can write about their travel experiences.Sure, we're not all the greatest authors.Some of us can't spell to save ourselves.Or know what an apostrophe is, let alone what it's for.And most of us won't make any money from our blogging.
But those are irrelevancies.The important thing is this-
that people are blogging on their experiences.Those unique experiences that are going to remain with us forever.They're not just precious....they're diamonds.Because they're now indestructible.

So the idea for this site is the culmination of many things, the end of a journey, and the start of another, perhaps.Or probably just taking a different direction....
For after all life is the journey.The places we visit are just bustops along the way.
Our journey has plenty of bus stops!
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2 comments:

Clark and Andrea Meister said...

Great work Jim and another great excuse to be on the PC!

Looking forward to hearing more. Imagine if you had this when you went to Europe when younger (much younger he he he!) But then it may be x rated!

Jim said...

Hiya Clark and Andrea!Gee in 1974 we communicated by writing a letter....
so you hardly bothered.
Nowadays it's just sooooooo easy.
Anyway, can I put you guys down for a copy of the written version?