The greatest part of gallivanting around Europe? Not the ancient churches steeped in culture, nor the towering spires in which you have to pay £20 to gain the privilege of climbing up hundreds of steps, and certainly not the historic castles, which you suspect have seen more starry-eyed tourists than actual battle.
No, my best memories were of parks. They were found in the tranquility of self-reflection as I enjoyed the serenity of nature, clutching my too-expensive coffee and watching the ducks swim about in the river as the cold winter wind whipped the fallen leaves off the ground beside me. And so it was that I soon discovered a strange new hobby: I made it a point, in each major city I went, to try visiting a park.
My parents were dumbfounded by this. They could scarcely believe that I, having flown 13 hours from sunny Singapore to live and study in a foreign land, would squander a magical European holiday just sitting around. Surely, they argued, I ought to have taken it upon myself to visit the ‘must see’ tourist attractions of these wonderful places.
Perhaps they had a point. But, in my defence, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Having obsessed over trying to do precisely that in the earlier part of the winter break, I soon found myself wondering what the point of it all was. What does it even mean for a tourist attraction to be a ‘must see’? Is it truly the culture and history that lies behind them? The sheer volume of tourists that are drawn to them in droves? That they were featured on websites and travelling blogs (read: other people said it should be visited)? Or, is it, as I came to suspect, simply the expectation that one must see it, just to tick it off the list?
At any rate, I was quickly fed up. I didn’t enjoy waking up early to have a head start. I didn’t enjoy going to see yet another cathedral for what must have been the third day straight. I didn’t enjoy posting aesthetic pictures on Instagram so that everyone who probably scrolled past my story in less than half a second would know I had a good time. So why did I feel a need to do so?
There is a strange irony in that even on holiday – the ultimate exercise of our free will – there is a particular ideal or prescribed way to spend it. We feel obliged to optimise everything, to feel productive, and to make the most of our leisure time – even when we are meant to be in our most relaxed state.
This pressure to do things that we are told we ought to do, rather than what we actually want to do, is not unique to travelling. In fact, it manifests in most aspects of our daily lives. It is what drives us to go partying or clubbing for the fear of missing out, rather than because we want to, or to enter a relationship because we feel we really ought to have done so by now, or to default to choosing the most prestigious career options available, because our educational pedigree behooves us to do so.
Being cognisant of this, it is worth taking a moment to pause and reflect. Is this something I really want to do or something that I feel like I should be doing? Granted, in some cases perhaps we really ought to do certain things – those tutorial sheets and essays are not going to complete themselves, nor will your body thank you if you pull constant all-nighters and eat meal deals every day.. But, I suspect, in more situations than we might realise, we are unwittingly swept along by these dominant social narratives and cultural pressures. And, in letting ourselves be carried by these currents, we run the very real risk of losing sight of what makes us, well, us.
Perhaps I cannot convince you, dear reader, to relook at every aspect of your life. Perhaps some of these pressures are too deep-set to simply be cast away by sheer force of will. Perhaps, having just entered the cusp of adulthood, we haven’t a sufficiently strong sense of self to distinguish our own desires from those which others and society impose upon us.
But, we can, and should, start to try. Change is possible, and at the very least, it should start with how we go about having fun. Go crazy. Visit parks instead of tourist traps. Put down the Phenomenology of Spirit and start kicking your feet whilst reading a trashy romance novel (no one will judge you, I swear). Sit by the marina and watch the warm rust-red hue of the evening light fade away into an unfamiliar metropolitan skyline .
Have fun doing what you genuinely enjoy. After all, once you’ve seen one ancient European church, you’ve basically already seen them all.
