Going Places
“Oh, the places you’ll go! You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to great heights!”
—Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Travel is such a pervasive metaphor for achievement we barely think about it. We casually employ the language of wanderlust to express concepts of success, talking about “getting somewhere” and “being on a path” and “climbing a mountain,” with “destinations” meaning “goals.” Instead of keeping us permanently in pajamas, the connected world seems to offer an increased awareness of our geographical proximity to just about any place we might wish to visit, and that awareness carries with it a desire, even a compulsion, to, well, go to those places.
With the adventuring comes striving, and with the striving comes more adventuring, as the diverse travelers profiled in this issue surely show. And it’s no coincidence that sales of Dr. Seuss’ endearingly inspirational little classic, quoted here, spike annually at graduation time—for many creative people, the journey is tied closely to school, often in places they never expected to find themselves. What we like about the emerging talents you’ll meet within is that, like Mark Twain, they never let their schooling interfere with their education, and as much as they might move around, they don’t mistake motion for action.
RES Vol. 9, No. 2
“Going Places”
March/April 2006
