Travel
What changes when you move through the world?
Your perspective expands. Your assumptions become visible. You discover that your "normal" is just one way of being.
Social Glue That Broadens
Each form of social glue serves a different function:
| Glue | Function | What Changes |
|---|---|---|
| Food | Makes you feel at home | Sense of belonging |
| Fashion | Signals alignment with movement | Self-expression |
| Music | Coordinates emotion | Shared feeling |
| Travel | Broadens horizons | How you perceive the world |
Food, fashion, and music create cohesion within a group. Travel expands the boundaries of the group itself — you encounter different ways of being, different assumptions, different norms.
The Perspective Loop
LEAVE (familiar) → ENCOUNTER (different) → CONTRAST (assumptions) → RETURN (changed)
Travel applies the feedback loop to worldview:
- Leave — step outside your comfort zone
- Encounter — meet people who see differently
- Contrast — notice your own assumptions
- Return — integrate the expanded perspective
You can't see your own assumptions until you see an alternative. Travel provides the alternative.
Why Travel Matters for Connection
The Heroes Journey requires leaving the cave. You can read about other cultures, but reading isn't knowing. Knowing requires encounter.
What travel offers that information can't:
| Travel Gives | Information Can't |
|---|---|
| Embodied experience | Being there, not reading about it |
| Unexpected encounters | Serendipity can't be optimized |
| Uncomfortable contrast | Growth requires discomfort |
| Stories you own | First-hand narrative |
| Relationships across difference | Connection beyond shared context |
The Mattering Instinct Abroad
At home, your mattering project operates in familiar territory. Abroad, the usual signals don't work. This creates:
- Humility — your status markers don't translate
- Curiosity — you must learn new rules
- Presence — survival requires attention
- Connection — you need others more
Travel strips away the autopilot. You become a learner again.
Travel as Practice
Travel isn't vacation. It's practice for navigating uncertainty.
The skills transfer:
- Reading unfamiliar situations
- Communicating across difference
- Finding allies in new contexts
- Adapting when plans fail
These are the skills of the 2027 thesis — when familiar structures shift, those who've practiced adaptation have advantage.
Context
- Social Glue — Activities that bind communities
- Food — Makes you feel at home
- Music — Coordinates emotion
- Fashion — Signals alignment
- Perspective — What you see that others don't
- Countries — Assessing places to live and work
- Travel Industry — The commercial layer