The whole exercise was perhaps the greatest ever illustration of group-think in action: one guy in the big tour bus thinks he sees something in the dark, cloudless sky and rushes out the back door to stare upwards, and then, seconds later, a busload of passengers, easily numbering in the dozens, quickly follow the first guy out of the bus to stare at the sky. Before long, showering in the strong cold sea winds of the North Atlantic, a group of shivering tourists stand on the desolate Icelandic coastline.
The group, with members hailing from every corner of Europe, America, and East Asia, all paid to get themselves to this remote corner of an island in the remote corner of the world, just so they can stand under freezing still-continuing winter of late March, for more than three hours for perhaps, if they are lucky, a few seconds of joy. Yet for them to go through all that effort ultimately only took two words: "Northern Light" and rest is just up to the imaginative pictures conjured up in their minds.
At times, it is simply amazing just how far people will go to, in their own words, "connect with nature." These people are somehow certain that by witnessing some abnormally grand and memorable natural phenomenon firsthand, they can somehow manage to reach psychological or emotional enlightenment on the spot, and suddenly change their whole attitude toward life and change its entire course. And they seem to be unequivocally determined about reaching that place of nature and enlightenment.
The favorite locale of such "soul-finding travelers" seem to be out here in the northerly latitudes seeking about curtain-like changing lights in the sky. The fact that its appearance is so seasonal, so random, and so unpredictable only seemed to have made the phenomenon so much more attractive. Countless professional photographs and dozens of documentaries are made about the aurora borealis that show its grandest colors of orange, red, and green, dancing as vertical streams of light in the sky.
With those images in mind, people have came across the world to this little island in the middle of nowhere. And many are simply determined to not leave until that see exactly the same thing they would see in the (some say) "Photo-shopped" pictures and videos. They just cannot bare to leave the island without that life-changing view of astronomical "curtain" dancing in the sky above them. And when they finally saw that streak of light, well, it certainly was beautiful, but is it really life changing?
The modern world is at the same time an individualistic one as it is a collective one. People strive to be themselves, yet all try to "be themselves" in exactly the same way. That idea of "conformity within individuality" has already become so deep-rooted as to reorient people's entire concept of free-thinking. The hordes of people trying to get a glimpse of the Northern Lights for "soul-finding" is a perfect demonstration of such.
Sure, different people will feel differently when they do see the no doubt magical phenomenon, and they can all conclude that they had their own unique interpretation of the event and their accompanying process of "forgetting worldly sorrows," but simply because the process is so overdone, so repeated in the course of decades, maybe centuries, that one has to doubt just how "special" reaching "enlightenment" under the aurora really is now...
And with frequent flights ferrying passengers to Iceland, and all the needed commercial establishments found on the island to cater to the travelers' worldly needs while they seek something utterly supra-worldly in their thoughts, the whole experience, like that of an adult going to Disneyland, no longer has that sense of magic that felt surreal when it was first accomplished. Perhaps soul search requires a unique itinerary just as much as it requires a unique mindset.
The group, with members hailing from every corner of Europe, America, and East Asia, all paid to get themselves to this remote corner of an island in the remote corner of the world, just so they can stand under freezing still-continuing winter of late March, for more than three hours for perhaps, if they are lucky, a few seconds of joy. Yet for them to go through all that effort ultimately only took two words: "Northern Light" and rest is just up to the imaginative pictures conjured up in their minds.
At times, it is simply amazing just how far people will go to, in their own words, "connect with nature." These people are somehow certain that by witnessing some abnormally grand and memorable natural phenomenon firsthand, they can somehow manage to reach psychological or emotional enlightenment on the spot, and suddenly change their whole attitude toward life and change its entire course. And they seem to be unequivocally determined about reaching that place of nature and enlightenment.
The favorite locale of such "soul-finding travelers" seem to be out here in the northerly latitudes seeking about curtain-like changing lights in the sky. The fact that its appearance is so seasonal, so random, and so unpredictable only seemed to have made the phenomenon so much more attractive. Countless professional photographs and dozens of documentaries are made about the aurora borealis that show its grandest colors of orange, red, and green, dancing as vertical streams of light in the sky.
With those images in mind, people have came across the world to this little island in the middle of nowhere. And many are simply determined to not leave until that see exactly the same thing they would see in the (some say) "Photo-shopped" pictures and videos. They just cannot bare to leave the island without that life-changing view of astronomical "curtain" dancing in the sky above them. And when they finally saw that streak of light, well, it certainly was beautiful, but is it really life changing?
The modern world is at the same time an individualistic one as it is a collective one. People strive to be themselves, yet all try to "be themselves" in exactly the same way. That idea of "conformity within individuality" has already become so deep-rooted as to reorient people's entire concept of free-thinking. The hordes of people trying to get a glimpse of the Northern Lights for "soul-finding" is a perfect demonstration of such.
Sure, different people will feel differently when they do see the no doubt magical phenomenon, and they can all conclude that they had their own unique interpretation of the event and their accompanying process of "forgetting worldly sorrows," but simply because the process is so overdone, so repeated in the course of decades, maybe centuries, that one has to doubt just how "special" reaching "enlightenment" under the aurora really is now...
And with frequent flights ferrying passengers to Iceland, and all the needed commercial establishments found on the island to cater to the travelers' worldly needs while they seek something utterly supra-worldly in their thoughts, the whole experience, like that of an adult going to Disneyland, no longer has that sense of magic that felt surreal when it was first accomplished. Perhaps soul search requires a unique itinerary just as much as it requires a unique mindset.
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