Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Daunting Travel

Historically, traveling can be a daunting experience. Before yellow cabs, the subway, airplanes, boats, buses, and limousine service, travel was only attempted by the strong and brave. Take our modern marathon. The length of a marathon comes from the distance a messenger had to run to deliver some urgent news before he dropped dead once the message was complete. Talk about strength, dedication, and health hazard. I doubt he would have complained if a limousine service had been available, but then we would not have our marathons.

Another example of an ancient pony express was the Inca runners. The Incas built this long road almost the entire length of their empire and every mile they would have a station where a strong, fast runner would wait. It was a lot like modern relay races. One runner would come speeding up, the next runner would begin and match his pace while the first delivered the message and then stop as the new runner keeps going. Only the strong were allowed to do this and it was their main method of getting messages across the kingdom.

In modern times, travel is definitely not just for the strong and brave. It isn't really a hazard to your health, yet we can definitely complain about it. If the limousine service is five minutes late, you might get an earful. If the cab driver can't get you from New York to Washington DC in a few hours, you might be annoyed, and if you are planning on going through the airport terminal, be prepared for numerous delays. Though the annoyance is understandable, try to keep it in perspective. After all, now we run marathons for fun.

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