Last night, as a fitting conclusion to our family trip to Maui, I re-watched Moana, probably my favorite movie of the kids’ genre.
I can very much identify with the story.
Similarly, my childhood love for the ocean and underwater diving started very early with “Oum, Le Dauphine Blanc” stories.
That was me as a kid…
Ian, Marina, Uncle Patric, who was an oceanographer or marine biologist, exotic animals, and scuba diving in the Polynesian Islands.
Back in Europe, still in high school, I traveled to Jagiellonian University, where I studied with a professor of the botanical department. I took private lessons in biology with the full intent of becoming a biologist.
I ended up a U.S. Marine, East Asian anthropology student, and an advanced SCUBA diver on the beautiful island of Okinawa for the most meaningful years of my youth.
Today, I am more like old Uncle Partic, not Ian, but the dream lives on.
I have dreamed about traveling and exploring my whole life.
I always wanted more than sunset sailboat cruises; I wanted to go somewhere to make a passage.
As a kid, I read books about explorers, starting with Jules Verne (properly pronounced żul vern).
Returning to the quote from Moana and the title of this post:
"We are all descendants of voyagers."
Most people, especially those comfortable with their lives at home, in the city, or in the village, do not realize that we are truly descendants of explorers. Without the drive to explore and travel, humans would likely not survive the bottlenecks of the evolutionary process. I discuss the eruption of volcano Toba 70,000 years ago in a separate post.
In Polish, we have a saying similar to "travels (will) educate (you)." It was also customary to send youth to be educated abroad, to become "cosmopolitan," as my mother would call it. The Greek word for cosmopolitan means a person from many cities.
The opposite of cosmopolitan is a beet (root), or if you prefer radish (root), in Polish "burak," describing a people who are settled, or planted, in their local opinions to the point they are red on the face.
So instead of treating vacations as glam, Instagram swimming pool-side photo shoot opportunities take kids and show them new places and cultures.
