From Nevada to the Irish Sea

Writers, Cities, Curiositas, and Yearning for Home

View from Dunluce Castle, 11/9/23

A week ago, I flew back to Virginia after visiting Ireland for the first time. I was simply visiting for a leisurely vacation, but in the back of my mind I held onto the hope that traveling across the Atlantic and visiting a new land would ignite a sort of writer’s spark within me and provide me with fresh material for my eager pen. It wasn't that I had run out of writing inspiration back home, but the thought of traveling out of the country and experiencing new things made me expect an outpouring of inspiration. And so, I went into my trip with the expectation that I was going to have an outburst of creativity and that everywhere I cast my gaze I would see words just waiting to be penned.

But as I’ve reflected upon my travels this past week, I realized that I didn’t have an outburst of creativity, at least not the kind I had expected. My travels certainly did bring many thoughts to mind, but they weren’t exactly unexpected or new revelations. Lurking within my subconsciousness was the hope that somehow the combination of crossing an ocean, skipping time zones, eating scones, and drinking Guinness would provide me with a kind of writer’s epiphany, or that I would experience a life changing moment, after which I would begin a new phase of my writing. Yet in spite of my expectations, my travels were relatively normal and nothing extraordinary happened.

This realization has prompted me to reconsider the process by which writers gather inspiration. The truly gifted writers do not explore the world with a calculated and utilitarian approach by which they mean to obtain fodder for their writing. Rather, true writers live first and then write well because of the life that they have lived. When our focus is only on what we can get out of a moment, we end up getting less out if it, not more. Instead of plotting and scheming how to live most fully, we must begin to simply live full lives.

So instead of returning from my travels with a flaming pen of wild inspiration, I've settled on capturing a few ponderings that have echoed within my mind. Most prominently, my time abroad gave me not the revelation, but simply the confirmation of a previous conviction, which is that I have a very hard time finding peace within a large city. We didn't even spend that much time in cities while in Ireland, instead spending most of our time on the roads, driving from town to town, soaking in the countryside; the green grassy fields outlined with gentle stone walls and speckled with woolly sheep. But the time that we did spend in the city caused something within me to well up and finally burst. Over the last year I have felt an internal shift, first slowly and unnoticed, and then quicker and palpable. Where once I drew inspiration and maybe even some sort of rejuvenation from a visit to a city, this year I have felt very content to stay in my small town, soaking in all the beauty of a slow and simple life.

I do not deny that cities have much to offer for those who wish to receive. But when I enter the streets of a large city, I often simply feel a sense of oppressive nihilism, consumerism and the weight of modernity pressing in upon me. Throughout the history of mankind, the three things that have given us hope are the expectation of everlasting joy in eternity, the laughter and bliss experienced with your family and friends, and finally, the majestic beauty and awe of creation. I am sure that these three things can be found to some extent in each city. But for me, as a passing traveler, not dwelling among the traffic and noise, my sense of alienation and distance from all that is green, grassy, and good weighs down upon me and throws me in a pensive and pondering mood.

Maybe I've just become a creature of habit, and going somewhere outside of my normal habitat is shocking and makes me uncomfortable. Perhaps that is a good thing, maybe it's prompting me to grow and to reconsider aspects of my life. Like all those who journey, at a certain point in your travels, you stop amidst the new surroundings and the myriad of unfamiliar faces, and your heart breaks and you yearn for the comfort of home.

Perhaps the long and distant journey is good, for it demands that we remember the simple things we've left at home. Maybe it is a blessing that I was able to drive through the busy streets of Dublin, making wrong turns, blocking an intersection at a red light, and getting yelled at by the garda. Maybe all of that is just to say that we need to be shaken a teeny bit every now and then. I'm not sure, but I do know that at a certain point the whole wide world and all the inspiration and awe captured in the thunderous crashing Irish Sea is just a reminder that sometimes the most uncomfortable and adventuresome journeys are those that we take along the paths outside our front door.

Did I enjoy my travels in Ireland? Yes, absolutely. I saw new places and tasted new food. I laughed, I cried. I got a screw removed from my rental car’s tire at a friendly Irish tire shop in the countryside. Tears came to my own eyes as I watched them rolling down the face of an Irish woman unapologetically crying at an unexpected rendition of Danny Boy by a Cajun American in an Irish pub. I got excited every time I saw sheep and stopped the car on a tiny country road to force my sister to take pictures of some picturesque cows. After essentially pulling an all-nighter on our transatlantic flight, we climbed down precarious rocks along the coast, and gathered seashells as a gentle rain began to fall. It was incredible.

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Before traveling, I had been pondering whether or not it is a virtuous thing for one to travel far distances. I firmly believe that we ought to spend our time and money as much as possible within our local communities. Furthermore, I also believe that as vast and beautiful as the world may be, much of its beauty lies just outside of our homes, beckoning to us relentlessly, even when we have not the eyes to care. With that in mind, my first instinct said that to travel across the ocean to walk upon foreign soil is wrong, morally, economically, and environmentally.

As I considered this internal objection to my travel plans, I was reminded of the virtue of studiositas, and the vice of curiositas.

We mainly fail in the virtue of studiositas by excess: we desire knowledge too greedily; we fall into the weakness of mind called curiositas. One can see that the English word “curiosity” is misleading as a description of this vice. Curiosity typically describes the natural human desire for knowledge. A lack of curiosity in this sense would be as unhealthy to a human mind as a lack of appetite for food would be for a human body. Curiositas on the other hand is always a corruption of the mind’s purpose, which is to grasp the truth in its fulness. The mind infected by curiositas is in one way or another blinded to the truth of real things.¹

Learning because we want to grasp more in a twisted, prideful and even malevolent manner is certainly wrong. This flawed mentality can also be applied at times to our exploration and travel. In a desire to unearth every secret in the world, we put nature upon the rack for our own various and sundry uses, ringing out every last drop to serve us in utilitarian industriousness. We travel, seek, explore, examine, and uncover for the sake of doing so because we feel superior, because we want to post about it on Instagram, or because we want to live lives that appear full and exciting. If any of these are our motivations for traveling, then yes, I would say that it is perhaps wrong and even sinful. But just as the desire to know can be lived out in virtue as well as in vice, the desire to know the world through travel can also be exercised virtuously.

We can approach our travels with eyes of virtue, even when those travels take us away from our homes and require us to travel great distances outside of our communities. Exploring God's creation with wonder and openness to an inward reworking of our heart is a noble and perhaps necessary aspect of our lives. The adventuresome spirit, which has animated countless lives before us, may sometimes become twisted with unchecked curiosity, but tempered with virtue it may elevate our souls and bring us higher towards the Divine. The unexpected surprises waiting for us just down the road, or over the horizon are little twitches upon the thread,² calling us home. The spark that awakens within you when you find your hiking boots, or pack your luggage is not evidence that you are an evil person, determined to destroy your local community. No, instead it is tied up in the mystery of creation and salvation. We have been given this yearning, this desire for more, even when it takes us away from our worldly home, so that we can continue traveling as restless pilgrims, yearning for our final destination in Paradise.

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Earlier this year, I travelled to Reno, Nevada, and there I felt the same sun that shines in golden rays of light upon the rolling green fields of Ireland. The landscape, so foreign and otherworldly in Nevada, becomes whimsical and magical in Ireland. The scenery of these two lands is as starkly different as those found within science fiction and fantasy stories. Yet like the two genres, both landscapes still beckon us towards the same truths. I flew west to Nevada. I flew east to Ireland. I live somewhere in the middle, and yet everywhere God remains the same. Everywhere the soil calls out, urging us to put down roots and to stay awhile. Everywhere, the wind blows gently, caressing our faces and tussling our hair about, sometimes gently, sometimes with anger and violence. Everywhere, the sun and the clouds daily battle each day, back and forth, back and forth, coloring the horizon in beauteous shades, forever indescribable.

Maybe I didn’t end up with a hundred new ideas to write about, but I don’t think that’s the point. I claim to write about “the beauty of simple things,” but it seems I must be taught again and again what that means. Instead of engaging with the world on my own terms, my travels reminded me to pause, take things slow, engage in the present moment, and trust in Him.

Dunluce Castle, 11/9/23

1. Studiositas and Curiositas | Prime Matters

2. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited