Value

I think that one of the things I love about travelling is its pure non-monetary value.

We live in a society that values mainly physical goods, that judges one person's achievements by the money s/he got, and infers related abstractions (power, wealth, sympathy, prowess, triumph, leadership...) out of the things people have, people buy, people want badly to acquire and people are told that they need.

Knowledge, skills, relationships, tales cannot be seen, because they're invisible values that require hard work to obtain, a lot of time and effort, but they're nonetheless more permanent than any of the expiring products we're constantly offered.

Things are not important... the real value lies in what we do with them, so if you don't use something it's because you don't need it anymore.
For instance, books are only containers of knowledge, their physical attributes not being important. Once I read them, I like giving them away, so this knowledge keeps on moving.

We cannot pay to get the abstractions that we want to have in our lives. We have to live in order to get them.

I know that this all sounds like antisocial chitchat, because everyone out there has thought about this, and has come to the same conclusions.
Then s/he resumed his/her daily routine.

A single minute lived within a trip worths a whole life of everyday 's shades of gray; so intense, so new all that surrounds you (smells, colours, sounds...)... it makes our brains work harder to capture every sensorial piece of this foreign world, thus effectively enlarging our memories, slowing the (perceived) pace of time and widening our understanding.

I read that too, somewhere, that the only way to make our lives longer is living new experiences. They may not be longer in actual time, but they are for our minds.

Whatever learnt by travelling is never forgotten.

Every cent spent in travelling is invaluable.