According to statistics, on vacation, people are more likely to get sick and put their health at risk. At the same time, the journey itself takes place in a mode that psychiatrists call an altered state of consciousness: excessive excitement, euphoria, painful tension. But we are not stopped by expenses, household inconveniences and dangers.
Anthropologists consider modern man’s tourist trips to be the secular equivalent of the sacred festivities that divided time in traditional cultures into two periods — the sacred time of the holiday and the ordinary time of everyday duties. For us, time is also divided into everyday life, full of worries, and «real life», which we buy for ourselves at the cost of 11 months of hard work.
The border between these two periods is lined with peculiar rituals of transition: getting ready, seeing off, setting the clock on the plane. The return rituals are just as indispensable: detailed stories of adventures, giving gifts to friends, showing photographs…
Journey is a festive and carnival period of temporary removal of social taboos, self-indulgence and fulfillment of desires. On vacation, we not only easily start holiday romances, but also give up many financial restrictions. It is not for nothing that it is considered that one cannot save on vacation, just as one cannot save on weddings, funerals and other sacred events in a person’s life.
Going to distant lands, we test our loyalty to ourselves, our love for home.
We treat this “holiday time” with different standards than the usual one. We are ready to risk our health and even life, trusting ourselves with aircraft, cruise ships or ski instructors. The journey itself for us is akin to the ritual test of the hero, which in traditional cultures is the essence of any holiday.
We return from vacation not at all “rested” and “full of energy”, but different, having tried on a different life, weaned from everyday duties. If it were not for this feeling of slight alienation that we experience upon returning, then there would be no point in traveling at all.
Going to distant lands, we test our loyalty to ourselves, our love for home.
American sociologist Dean McCannell considers the main purpose of travel to strengthen one’s own identity: «Leaving home, parting with the usual circle of family and friends and then returning as the same person is perhaps the best test that the ego invented to measure its power.»
If, despite all the adventures experienced on vacation, we find the strength in ourselves to go to work on Monday, then everything is in order with our ego. You can live on.