Ambivalent discovery: Paul Theroux, gap year apologists, and the nature of a “journey”

In the closing chapter of The Old Patagonian Express, the writer, Paul Theroux, faces a problem: he has spent the entire book outlining his journey across America by the trains he takes along the way, with names like the Balboa Bullet and El Jarocho. However, as Theroux reaches the final stretch, the last few miles to the Tierra del Fuego - a journey intended as the ultimate reflective denouement - he finds this route has no calling card, no title; the motif has been broken by reality itself. Theroux won’t let this stand, so he decides to baptise the train himself, with the help of a boy across the aisle; it gives its name to the book, a symbol of Theroux’s ability to imprint what he has learned over two continents onto the miniscule details of provincial life. The journey changed him. 

There is a stereotype, one that carries more than a grain of truth, about gap year students and other sorts who go on follies to faraway lands, always in the pursuit of “finding yourself”. The derision these people face (usually indirectly) rests on the idea that the reasoning is lazy. How could you possibly find yourself in the jungles of Myanmar? You’re far more likely to find a Bengal tiger – or a rebel militia. Moreover, if it’s the sort of gap year that involves drinking through the night, self-discovery is a useful cover for not really doing much while you’re away. But I find this whole thing a tad disingenuous; there’s a handful of good reasons to typecast the “year out”, but to dismiss it out of hand is overdoing it.

While I was on my year abroad – a decidedly wholesome 10 month romp in Seville where I was obliged to complete a year’s worth of university studies – I found myself (no pun intended) thinking rather a lot about the gap year narrative, and what self-discovery really implied. Why was it something that was supposedly easier to do on some great journey? If travel tarnished us with some great enlightenment paintbrush, where could I find it? Questions like this can become debilitating, because at their heart they ask something rather sombre: what makes each person different?

That might seem a bridge too far for you; let me explain. If I separate you from your family, your friends, your hobbies, your job, your county, your country, and with them, everything that previously defined you in the eyes of others – except the clothes you wear and your choice of hairstyle – and throw you into another country where people cannot bring themselves to translate your Facebook or Instagram, what remains of “you” in the eyes of others? You have to start from the ground up, surely? It’s not dissimilar to moving school during childhood, except, as a (semi-)mature adult, you’re given the chance to evaluate yourself and consider what it is that makes you unique, independent of all the (metaphorical) baggage you’ve left at home – provided you do leave it behind.

In the case of Paul Theroux, his isolation paints him a cynic – but one with a sharp eye for detail and a belief in the goodwill of strangers. There is something very freeing about travelling far from home, not quite knowing exactly when we will return, beyond the obvious absence of responsibilities. Our emotional connection to home is loosened in such a way that we feel less tied to a certain perspective. Self-discovery, or whatever you choose to call it, is just a natural consequence of this geographical dissonance. While every traveller is in some way an ambassador from their country of origin, they are equally a simple onlooker, observing and inhaling the culture and nature of the places they travel to, or, moreover, through.

The arbitrary distinction between travelling to somewhere and travelling through somewhere is, in my eyes, an unnecessary one. When we “arrive” at our holiday “destination” we do not cease moving; we continue travelling step by step through the space until we leave, gaining new perspective and understanding so long as we move. The idea that a journey has its terminus is predicated entirely on the idea that insight stops when we step off the transport that has brought us there. In my opinion, that’s a pretty loaded judgement. I’d say arrival only happens when we return home, as that’s when the mental journey constituted by travel ends properly. It gives us a chance to take stock.

It’s notable, then, that Theroux is best known for coining the phrase “it’s the journey, not the destination”, first written as “the journey, not the arrival, matters”. There’s a truth here: it's the journey that gives us notional perspective, and the arrival that helps us recognise we’ve changed. Theroux might be right to assert that air travel has made us “insensitive to space”, but this shouldn’t stop us from recognising the immense effect that travel can have on our understanding of the difference between peoples, places, and cultures. Never mind the globalist, hegemonic bent of our age; we should never forget that the world is littered with chances to think differently.