The Price of Self-Awareness

Ian Buruma´s introduction to V.S. Naipaul´s A House for Mr Biswas has made me more aware than ever of the internal journey that has been catalyzed by my travels.

Buruma says that the only way to become truly self-aware is to remove oneself from the daily rituals that create the sense of home to which everyone clings. The people who look after us, the habits, the language -- none of this can be truly understood without completely removing oneself from one´s native surroundings. But when a person breaks free from the patterns and conditions of home, she risks losing everything valuable about that place: the comfort it offers.

Stepping back from our native lives forces us to risk losing the connections to the people who looked after us as children. Gaining a deeper understanding of our native rituals as more than just the motions we go through causes us to sacrifice receiving comfort from those rituals. And when the safety and comfort of home are gone, there is nothing left to do but keep moving. The more we explore beyond our native land, the more self-aware we become -- but the more inconsolable we become, as well.

And here, Buruma says, enters the importance of the written word. For Naipaul, the tradition of funerals provides no relief from the melancholy that accompanies losing a loved one -- no comfort from the fear of his own mortality. But words that last, the written word, provide a path to refuge from the sadness and fear.

When the words don´t come, there is no escape from the pain. Words become both mother and father -- nurturing and encouraging us and pushing us further down the road of exploration. The more we write, the further from home we find ourselves. The words gain exponential importance. They push us away from what we´ve known, but bind our feet to the earth, also. The words help us find our path. As we trod along the road of exploration, we gain self-awareness, and the words are our sole companion. But as the path becomes more clear, it becomes ever more impossible to go back; as the road opens before us, it close in our wake. There is never any going home, as home is no longer there to us.

The yearning for self-awareness is born of chaos in one´s life -- be it externally perpetuated or an internal struggle. People search for truth and peace by developing many (often destructive) habits. But for me, as with Naipual, inner peace is achieved through the adventure of exploration -- the physical removal of ourselves from our chaotic surroundings and the search for comfort from the written word.

When home cannot protect us from our fears, we turn to writing to open the door to immortality and peace. Family can never guarantee our ability to leave something behind -- only words. Once the initial break from home is made, travel becomes self-perpetuating. And when self-awareness becomes painful, the only relief is to continue searching until we discover the root of the pain. Then, we write about it.