Roads That Know No End

Explore Philippines Tagged Along on a Road Trip With Four Women to Discover Their Reasons for Doing So and to Experience It Ourselves.

- Bea Celdran

We are nomadic in nature, adapting quickly to a change in environment and making the most of the resources in a given territory. In Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden, he surmises that the genus Homo which defines the start of mankind had been interwoven with the flora and fauna of the planet during a legendary golden age. In the biblical account, it was after the exile from Eden that man became cut off from the world.

After the exile from Eden, we find, in the biblical account, mankind condemned to death; hard work; clothing and modesty as preventatives of sexual stimulation; . . . the domestication of plants (Cain); the domestication of animals (Abel); and murder (Cain plus Abel).

As civilizations rose, crumbled, and evolved, more fortified than the last, systems were conceived, putting the thoughts and priorities of humanity in its place. A friend once noted that “the system humanity has created was designed to keep you safe, settled, and in one place. It’s hard to notice the plight of others when you’re satisfied and distracted by the things that you own.”

So disconnected we have become with the rest of the world that we forget there is more than ourselves. Modern society has become so successful in keeping us in our bubbles that we’ve become accustomed to our comfort zones and personal needs and we start living in an illusion promoted by the very pillars of society to keep the status quo. That’s why we travel far and wide despite miniscule budgets and an uncertain itinerary: because we choose to see what else is out there. The most basic perhaps, is the “road trip.”