Alan's Travel Lessons for Life

Worn Paths, Paved Roads or Sidewalks Limit Us

2008-08-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

Worn Paths, Paved Roads or Sidewalks Limit Us

I prefer to venture where no one has gone or at least very few have gone.

I also wander along paths if I have never been on them before.

When I walk along a road, new ones or ones I have walked many times, I deliberately do not walk in the worn paths that are in the grass, weeds, dirt or sand.

Here is a poem that a writing friend sent me because I shared with her the title of my ongoing book project:

Life is a Creative Journey,
Not a Guided tour

Here is the poem slightly modified by me this
morning.

Life is a Journey

by Alvin Fine (mildy modified by Alan a fellow wanderer)

Birth is a beginning
and death a destination;

Life is a journey.

A going,
a growing from stage to stage

From childhood to maturity
and youth to old age.

From innocence to awareness
and ignorance to knowing;

From foolishness to discretion
and then perhaps, to wisdom.

From weakness to strength
or strength to weakness
and often back again.

From health to sickness
and back we pray,
to health again.

From offense to forgiveness,
from loneliness to love,

From joy to gratitude,
from pain to compassion.

From grief to understanding,
from fear to faith;

From defeat to defeat to defeat,
until looking backward or ahead:

We see that victory lies not at some high place
along
the way,

But in having made the journey,
stage by stage,
hopefully a sacred pilgrimage.

Birth is a beginning
and death a destination;

Life is a journey,
Hopefully a sacred pilgrimage,

Made stage by stage...

To life everlasting.

May your life be a wonder-filled wondrous journey.

Willingly, Wondering, Wandering in search of Wisdom Alan

Out of Order Chaos

2008-08-09T06:11:00.001-07:00

Order Out of Chaos

When I travel I try to observe what I see.

Yogi Berra, famous American baseball, is also famous for his down-to-earth quotations.

"It ain't over until it's over"

"You can observe a lot just by watching."

I had been to Istanbul a few times before I truly began to SEE how organized the city truly is.

The business areas, businesses, shops, stores, warehouses, markets are arranged by the type of product or service...

spices
fabrics
food
curios
electronics
appliances
music
etc.

this is true inside the bazaars or the famous Egyptian Market, also known as the GRANDE BAZAAR.

Even on market day when many people set up their wares on the concrete pavement area near the boat docks theindividual sellers completely organize their wares.

The most extreme was a shoe salesman who had taken great care to arrange all the pairs of shoes in a pattern and unique design.

Airports....are one place I watch for order or chaos...how the vehicles trucks, vehicles, carts, etc are arranged.

Japan and Germany.....the perfect order is blatantlyobvious

Paris....total chaos

SA....some order and chaos

Sri Lanka and India....seemed messy

From chaos comes order.

Sometimes what appears as chaos is actually order.

Willingly Wondering Wandering in search of Wisdom Alan

Traveling by Car Not a Choice Much Any More

2008-08-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

Traveling by Car Not a Choice Much Any More

I don't usually travel more than 5 or 6 hours by car any more because I get bored traveling by car longer than that. Mostly it is 3 to 4 hours, which I have to do to teach at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia 5 times a year.

From 1950 to 1961 I traveled with my parents for 3 to 5+ weeks each summer touring the US. By 61, the summer I turned 17, I had been in all 48 mainland states, Canada (several times) and the northern part of Mexico. My father used 500 miles as the usual max in a single day.

Of course I just traveled for about 30 hours by car, plane and taxi to Singapore and I go to South Africa each year which is an 18 to 20 hour trip one way.

Car trips

My trip yesterday from Sarasota, Florida to Athens, Georgia was

Trip distance: 526.57 miles Time: 8 hrs 26 mins

I did it in about 8 hours with a couple short stops for food and gas or simply to stop and stretch my legs.

One time when I first lived in Florida in 1972 I drove back to Detroit in a single trip alone once...

Trip distance: 1335.91 miles Time: 20 hrs 8 mins

then it took about 22 hours because the highways were not all built that connect all the states.

My father on our very first long summer trip drove back from
Platte, South Dakota to Detroit, Michigan in a singletrip

Trip distance: 986.42 miles Time: 15 hrs 3 mins

there were no SUPER HIGHWAYS of the US INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM then and it took him about 22 hours.

There were 5 of us in the 1950 ford 4 door sedan. My
two brothers and I in the back seat. My mother and father in the front.

My memory of that family story is that they had mostly run out of money and could not afford a motel room for the night so he drove the complete trip in one drive.

Just driving the width of Texas is a very long trip... Trip distance: 859.92 miles Time: 12 hrs 3 mins

Traveling the length of Georgia and Florida is a long trip as well

Trip distance: 926.34 miles Time: 14 hrs 55 mins

Long drives are no longer fun for me and especially alone. Some of the highway trips are so repetitive and the scenery so boring an hour can be too long of a trip.

I had a mix of storytelling cds and a couple comedy cds and after hearing the storytelling cds completely through I listened to the Robin Williams Live cd over and over and over.

Radio stations in Florida and Georgia, especially in the rural areas are mostly religious or country music, the type that I do not like. Besides I dislike listening to disc jockeys and commercials.

I will probably drive again next year to the 6th Florida Creativity Weekend. I will definitely take many more cds.

Once again traveling was a metaphor for life.

We need to have basic plans.

We benefit from being flexible and willing to change or improve our plans while they are taking place.

It helps to do whatever we can to make our lives, our total journeys, travels enjoyable along the way.

Seek Wisdom When You Travel

2008-04-05T14:53:00.000-07:00

When we travel we experience many things consciously, subconsciously and unconsciously. From these can come wisdom that can serve us well all of our lives.

Like this photo of thousands of balloon figures the many experiences we have from the very small to the very large and dramatic can provide us insights, pieces of wisdom.

I remember two identical experiences I had one in one that happened when I was in my teens and the other when I was 33.

The first took place in Montana on a mountain near my cousin's home. Bored with what our parents were doing in his house we ventured out to climb up the lower portion of the mountain behind his home. On the way down I lost my footing and began to slide down, down, down. Just as I was reaching the edge one of my feet caught in a rut causing my sliding body to make an abrupt turn to the left. Had my foot not gotten diverted by the rut I would surely have gone over the edge and had fallen several hundred feet to the rocks below.

The second took place in Norway on a mountain near Narvik. I had traveled up the mountain by bus and train and was walking through the brush towards the edge to look down, far down into the fiord below. I was moving quickly and suddenly my hiking foots lost their footing and I began to slide across the rocky surface towards the edge. Once again my left foot got caught. That time in some animal hole and my sliding body was suddenly stopped just a few feet from the edge. Had it not caught I probably would have slid over the edge and fallen over 1,000 feet to the water and rocks far below.

Both times I had sketchy, lose goals with no plans.

Both times I was careless about what I was doing.

Both times I did not pay attention to the situation or the environment.

Both times I was lucky.

Now looking back at both of those events: one nearly 50 years ago and the other over 30 years ago I recall that I need to relook at my current life, current situations in my life: personally and professionally and to begin to pay attention, take time to create specific goals and definite plans.

What about your life?

Are you paying attention to your current situation, the current environments in your personal and professional lives?

Do you have specific goals and plans for each of them?

Perhaps now is the time.

Wandering Alan
alan@cre8ng.com
http://www.cre8ng.com

Learning from Your Environment

2005-11-12T09:06:00.000-08:00

TRAVEL BUSINESS LEARNINGS – 002

Learning from Your Environment

Is this how your marketing looks?

cluttered
chaotic
confusing

or is this how it looks…

crystal clear
concise
and
easy to understand and remember?

Learn from your environment. Learn from where you are, right now!

Our environments can teach us great things directly and indirectly through metaphor, simile, examples, or analogy and comparison.

Learn from your environment.

First collect the finest examples you can find and study them. Look for what works. Look for how you may adapt or learn and then create fresh for yourself to help you accomplish your goals.

Second collect piss poor examples and learn what not to do in your business.

The examples can come from the human-made or the natural environments surrounding you anywhere you are.

Make the Only Shot Perfect

2005-11-12T08:58:00.000-08:00

TRAVEL BUSINESS LEARNINGS – 001

Make the Only Shot Perfect

We are “making perfect” when we are trying to capture the “perfect shots”. Perfect composition. Perfect subject matter. Perfect image. Perfect color. Perfect lighting. We’re trying with one shot to duplicate what the finest professional photographers make look so easy because of their extensive training, lengthy experience and highly superior and far more expensive top notch professional quality equipment.

Is that how you are trying to do your marketing?

Perhaps you need to start with Kodak Brownie Instant Camera quality and work up to Olympus 5050 digital quality and beyond. First by experimenting. Second getting and taking the advice, support and help of many professional marketers and your business associates/friends and even your competition who have better marketing or have been more successful with their marketing then you have so far.

Alan
alan@cre8ng.com
http://www.cre8ng.com
to enjoy world travel photos
http://www.homepage.mac.com/cre8ng