When I was young, I took a trip to West Germany with my parents, as my father was giving a paper at the IHC in Hamburg. One of the side trips available was to go to a beach between East Germany and the Danish peninsula, so we got to see all of the tanks and barbed wire that was typical of the Soviet Bloc in the early eighties. Later, as an HS graduate, but before college, a friend and I went to Northern Ireland. This, of course, was during the Troubles.
All of this is to say that as a young man I developed a taste for going to places where history was in process, so to speak. Now, as a man in his fifties, I tend to avoid things like that, no matter how beautiful you make it sound. And beautiful it sounds. Good, or bad, I do not know.
I am of the same mind as you. The problem is that history just won't stop happening. I keep thinking of all the places you could visit as recently as the 1970s that are effectively closed today. The whole Hippie Trail that went through Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Northwest Pakistan, for instance. I fear that we will keep heading in this direction, countries and regions receding into isolation. I hope not, but I guess we will see.
When I was young, I took a trip to West Germany with my parents, as my father was giving a paper at the IHC in Hamburg. One of the side trips available was to go to a beach between East Germany and the Danish peninsula, so we got to see all of the tanks and barbed wire that was typical of the Soviet Bloc in the early eighties. Later, as an HS graduate, but before college, a friend and I went to Northern Ireland. This, of course, was during the Troubles.
All of this is to say that as a young man I developed a taste for going to places where history was in process, so to speak. Now, as a man in his fifties, I tend to avoid things like that, no matter how beautiful you make it sound. And beautiful it sounds. Good, or bad, I do not know.
Good to see your writing JR.
-Aaron David.
Thanks! Great to hear from you, Aaron.
I am of the same mind as you. The problem is that history just won't stop happening. I keep thinking of all the places you could visit as recently as the 1970s that are effectively closed today. The whole Hippie Trail that went through Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Northwest Pakistan, for instance. I fear that we will keep heading in this direction, countries and regions receding into isolation. I hope not, but I guess we will see.