8 Comments

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The mind is free and all that. The trouble is, it's attached to the body. Last 'Endgame' I was in the hospital feeling unable to read anything. Now I'm eagerly waiting for my discharge (on a Sunday, good luck) enjoying Philip's extraordinary writing skills and writing my own jumbled comment, mainly because there is nothing quite as boring as a hospital bed when you're feeling fine. My wife and I can't travel any more and you know what? It's not so bad!

PS When I was an undergraduate philosophy student my response to Descartes was "l think I think, therefore I think I am."

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Samuel Pepys wrote, "Continue to question your certitudes and continue to refine your opinions toward their essences, you can maintain an elegant mind." I think of Mr. Slayton in this regard.

'The Endgame'. allows Mr. Slayton to be a public diarist of great honesty. Some of us travel

widely without much money, even in our advanced age. I think of Edward Lear: "Here in

Corsica, my resources are meager but not the imagination." Even at his most formal, Mr. Slayton speaks as if we are sitting across the kitchen table from each other.

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Just finished reading your story about why we love to travel. I read it while sitting at JFK Airport on my way to Naples. It was the perfect piece to help me pass the time between my flights and to take my mind off the possibility that my luggage may not make the connection. Another excellent reason to opt for the stay-at-home pleasures of claret and Netflix.

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Travel’s a funny thing

In 1946

When I was three

No itchy feet

I traveled to the land

Of the homeless

Without once leaving

Canada’s capital

Sure I’ve been

To Ephesus

But that trip

At three

Believe me

Caused me to see things

No one else can ever

See

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We don’t all like to travel. Those of us with dietary restrictions find travel overseas a nightmare. And the cost of travel is prohibitive for many of us, even those who are middle class. I did plan to travel more within my own country when I retire, but given how finances have panned out, that won’t happen. Travel is for a privileged few, not for the masses.

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In addition to the remorse of transition to travel, there is the energy remorse of carbon consumption; yet I go while I can.

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How you slip in erudition to your musings!Scoundrei,sir a scoundrel!

“And he went to the phallogical museum in Reykjavik”

Need I say more?

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Quite a bit of why we like to travel is, ceteris paribus, determined by our personality. At least, as the joke goes, in mice/great tits. Or it used to be so.

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