Wandering souls still need constants, a North Star if you will, to remain grounded while reaching for the heavens to fulfill ones dreams.

Constants are important to everyone, to humankind.  We are comfortable when we can depend on staples of our existence: The sun rising in the East, the smell of the ocean, the sensation of wind in your hair.  These staples could include more intimate notions as well: A loved ones laugh, a mother’s home cooking, a warm embrace.

Only after removing myself from these personal staples do I appreciate them deeply, and yearn for a temporary substitute.  Just like the absence of the sun rising, the absence of these human comforts can easily tip the scale from balance to chaos.

I love considering myself a world traveler, even though there are scores of people out there that perform this lifestyle much better and who have been doing it for a much longer period of time.

Traveling takes a certain kind of person and a certain kind of temperament.  I’ve never liked the assumption that the people who travel must be “running away” from something.  Sure, a few of those people may exist, and ultimately have will have their demons catch up with them…eventually.  But, I feel that I (and many other travelers) keep running towards things, like I’m being pulled by a strong magnetic force to this random place or that unique experience.

Something magical happens when you travel.  Those far-off exotic destinations on the map no longer scare or intimidate you because you’ve given yourself the opportunity to digest that experience.  You realize that people are people.  They may look, sound and believe differently, but we are all very much the same.  We all rise in the morning and go to bed at night.  We all eat when we’re hungry, schlep ourselves from our homes to our jobs and develop comradery within our local community.  We laugh, cry and inadvertently stare at things which are uncommon or unfamiliar.

Once you realize that people are the same all over the world, and you’ve had an experience that has taken you far away to gain that perspective, the world seems so small…in a good way.  No, it a great way!  We have the reassurance of our constants, so balance is maintained and fulfillment is almost guaranteed.  Those interesting spots on the map no longer seem like “a world away,” they are merely “one continent over from that other place I’ve visited.”

And so it goes, in an avalanche of understanding, that we all want, desire, need and appreciate the same things.  No matter if you are exploring the entire world or simply enjoying life from one remote location, everyone longs to keep experiencing things that are familiar  in order to keep us grounded.  Whether it’s the oceans breaking waves or merely a picture of something meaningful, we find comfort in the constants of life.  They remind us of who we are, where we’ve been and propel us forward into the darkness.

Wanderers aren’t necessarily wayward, we just identify our constants everywhere we go, so we never feel alone.  And if we never feel alone, we always feel we are moving in the right direction.