Have you ever had a longing to go somewhere you have never been? I have, and that place is Nara, Japan. I have felt a longing to go there since I first learned about it around 3 years ago. The more I studied this place, the more I was sure that I had to go there. Studying the fascinating history of the city and its magnificent temples and landmarks only fueled my desire to go there. Now that I have been there, I realize that its just a foresty town with a bunch of deer and some really old, really big buddhist temples. While this may seem like a pessimistic or cynical description of such an amazing place, believe me that is not at all what I meant.
I gave it such a bland description just to call it what it actually is. Just a place. While it is an amazing place with an amazing history, it is merely a place. I make this distinction because for the longest time I was sure that going there would give me some kind of special or even spiritual insight into the importance or meaning or purpose of my life. I felt lost and unsure of myself and what I should be doing in this world, of what my contribution to society would be. Something inside of me told me that if I can just make it there, it would become clear to me. Well I have gone there, and I have been to the palces that I thought would give some answer, or some kind of insight or direction.
What did I find?
A forest with a town and some buildings (albeit magnificent buildings) and lots of deer. While these things are fun and interesting, even captivating in their own right, they did not give me answers. They did not provide insight or direction to my life.
But I believe they did teach me something. That is that a place is just a place. Things, material objects, are just things. They can be beautiful, useful, interesting or magnificent; but they can't tell me who I am and what I must do. That is only for us to decide on our own. While I'm sure this seems like obviously common sense to most, it wasn't to me, and it might not be to someone else who reads this.
That being said, Nara and Kyoto are really interesting, magnificent, history-rich places with beautiful sights and wonderful people. I highly recommend them to anyone, but it will have a lot more meaning if you do a bit of homework and study at least some of the basic history of the place. My best photos from Kyoto and Nara are in the Photos section of this site, please check them out.
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