I am not the most traveled person in the world. I’m not even the most traveled person I know. But I have been a few places. And there’s one place I’ve been that I see a lot of people want to visit. Some have even described it as their dream to visit it. I think this place is a hole. I feel qualified to label it thus because I’ve been to more than one hole, even lived in one (or two). But this location simply doesn’t strike me as that amazing or incredible a place to visit.
Now this locale does have some interesting man-made attractions. And the places within several hundred (maybe thousand) miles of it are even less amazing and less inviting so I could understand why people from those places would want to go there. The people I’m describing that want to go to this hole of a location are already in much better places yet talk about this place as if it is the penultimate place to go.
This would be like someone in the Presidential Suite of a five star hotel wanting to stay at the Motel 6. Don’t get me wrong, the Motel 6 is better than the Thunderbird Lodge in central Washington (at least it was in 1992) plus they’ll leave a light on for you. Not my point. Who would desire the lesser when they have the greater?
Perhaps you’ve noticed I haven’t named the location. That’s on purpose. What if it is your dream vacation spot? I’m not trying to insult anyone who wants to go there. I’m doing a good job insulting them, just that I’m not trying to. Why in the world (literally) would anyone want to go to a hole?
Then again “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C. S. Lewis.