At the Monument of the Discoveries

Once, travel began with someone venturing beyond the horizon, truly not knowing what awaited them there. There were no accurate maps, no means of communication, no way to check exactly where you had ended up. Perhaps that is why those journeys were of a different scale altogether — and carried a different sense of the unknown.

Since then, we have learned a great deal about the world. We have charted almost everything there is to chart, can travel from one continent to another in a matter of hours, and have grown accustomed to knowing so much about unfamiliar places in advance. It seems there is little left to discover.

And yet, for some reason, people keep travelling. Perhaps it was never really about new lands in the first place.

There is something deeply human in the desire to go beyond where you have already been. Sometimes it is a distant country, sometimes a neighboring city, and sometimes simply a corner you have never turned before.

The world may have become familiar long ago, but somehow our curiosity has not. And this is perhaps one of the few things history has never quite been able to change.

Monument of the Discoveries, Lisbon, Portugal.
September, 2017.
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