Around the World in…1095 Days?

Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, actually only made it 596 days—a stab wound in the ended his life while in the Philippines—but his crew continued their exploration and made it back to Spain 1095 days after they’d left, becoming the first people to circumnavigate the world.  That record has since been exceeded--credited largely to the advances of technology--and cultures have mixed more than ever before.

Magellan and his ships

Phileas Fogg’s Voyage 

In the  movie, Around the World In 80 Days, Phileas Fogg, because of a bet, decides to travel the world in 80 days using almost any and mode of transportation available in the late 1800s: “boats, trains, balloons, elephants” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327437/plotsummary#summaries).  His adventures lead him from London to Paris, to Turkey then India, and from China to San Francisco and New York.  Although fictional, the movie illustrates how technology had advanced, allowing ordinary people to launch their own voyages, tasting a larger sample of cultures in a shorter amount of time.

“When Steve Fossett Became the Magellan of the Skies”

Flash forward to February 28, 2005 when American pilot and businessman, Steve Fossett, flew around the world in 67 hours (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-steve-fossett-became-magellan-of-skies-180954323/).  That’s 392 times faster than Magellan’s ships, again demonstrating how advanced technology increased man’s ability to explore the world.

Coming Full Circle

Instead of taking on several-year voyages or multi-day flights to travel around the world, much of what the early explorers discovered comes to us instead.  In mere seconds we can access pictures of Paris’s Eifel Tower, find recipes from Rome, listen to Mexico’s Mariachi band, or watch the World Cup from nearly anywhere.

But technology isn’t the only reason we can experience a cultural feast in our day-to-day lives.  When I served as a Spanish-speaking missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, my “trainer” was Hermana (Sister) Fastidio.  I thought her last name sounded Spanish and quickly learned what fastidio meant: a nuisance or annoyance.  But Hermana Fastidio was from the United States—in fact, she wasn’t Hispanic at all. Her grandfather was Filipino, and because the Spanish (the first voyage being led by Magellan) conquered the Philippines several centuries earlier, many of the surnames are resultantly Spanish. 

I doubt the early explorers envisioned that technology would breach the scope it has or that their voyages would lead this melting pot of cultures.

Image Credit: (Laurence Bergreen: Poza krawedz swiata, Rebis, Poznan 2005), (https://www.pexels.com/photo/camera-caucasian-cell-cellphone-267438/). 

Chaos vs Order: The Motivation Behind the Voyages

The Renaissance Man. He had effortless style in his dressed, he was well versed in subjects ranging from math to rhetoric, and most importantly he was a sovereign individual. His ancestors lived in a world where sovereignty remained in the hands of the state and it's constituents were born into their destinies as predicated by fate (or the state). After being introduced to sovereignty, the Renaissance Man saw beyond the tyrannical order that bound his ancestor's destinies and followed his natural instinct to explore the chaos of the outside world. He continually waded through the unknown waiting for an idea to grab hold of him. The drive to comprehend and create resulted in the voyages of people like Sir Walter Raleigh and Michel de Montaigne.

Every individual needs order and consistency in their lives to remain sane. But, when order become tyrannical people are tend to either wreak havoc where they are just to have something to put back together, or set off on an adventure to understand and put together all the unknown puzzle pieces outside of their domain. Leaving the tyranny of the Tower of London in search for gold is not just Sir Walter's story, but an archetype of human behavior. While the description of his adventures is not honest, his narrative of their quest into chaos lives on.

Michel de Montaigne lived out this archetypal ideal as well, however seemed to gain more from his journey than just a bedtime story. Montaigne encountered the unknown when he met the "Cannibals." He could have recoiled in the face of so much chaos and labeled them as barbaric like many other voyagers of his day, but instead he had the courage to take one step further into the dark. By taking the time to observe and contemplate the seemingly chaotic traditions of the natives, Montaigne was able to organize all the new information he observed and concluded that the Tupinamba Indians were very similar to the people he new in his homeland.

This level of understanding would not have been possible without the enlightenment that resulted out of the Renaissance. As an individual continually exposes themselves to chaos and makes a sincere attempt to put in comprehensible order, they will move closer to reaching their full potential of Being.