the art of travel...

or even the art of life...

"we change according to whom...and sometimes what we are with. the company of certain people excites out generosity and sensitivity, of others, our competiveness and envy. A's obsession with status and hierachy may lead B to worry about his significance...move B to another enviroent and his concerns will subtly shift"

but...

"what may then be expected to occur to a persons identiy in the company of a mountain, an oak tree, a lake...objects which after all have no conscious concerns and so it would seem cannot either encourage or censor behaviour? and yet an inaminate object may, still work an influenc eon those around it. oaks dignity, pines resolution, laks calk..and in unobtrusive ways act as inspirations to virtue"

opinion of a poet William Wordsworth who fell in love with the countryside, in particular Lake district, and believed that nature was a cure to the damaging effect of cities where they foster a "family of life-destroying emotions, anxiety about our position in the social hirachy, envy at the success of others, pride and desire to shine in th eyes of strangers....perhaps unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective

"dreamt of leaving...for smewhere else, somewhere far away, on another continent, with no reminders the the 'everyday"

but

"we are sad at home, and blame the weather and the ugliness f the buildings, but on teh tropical island we learn that the state of the skies, and the appeareance of the dwellings can never on their own undrwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.."

i.e. in the words of Amit, "happiness comes from within"