justiposition's suppositions

At 23, I had little curiosity for the world out there. I was content where I was, not realizing that the city I lived in was merely a dot-- almost invisible to the naked eye--on the map. At 24, a question was inexplicably instilled in me. And what better way to find the answer, I think to myself now, than geographically relocating oneself somewhere on the opposite side of that map, somewhere culturally opposite where I stood? For me, this place lay in the Far East, in Japan, the land of the rising sun and dreams. Japan to me is more than just a place. It is an idea, one that thrives heavily on symbolism, which is deeply rooted in its history and therefore its culture. Each person I shared a memory or words or even a slight moment's eye contact with in my years there is symbolic of someone we will all come across in our lives at some point. People come and people go; some merely stay longer than others. But each individual plays a part in our lives. We are all connected somehow, and this is something you may hear all the time but will never fully understand until you talk to a friend that was previously a stranger.
Each place I explored, whether purposely (with a traveller's itinerary) or by fortunate coincidence (with an explorer's intrepidity) is symbolic of a place we will all find ourselves in at some point. I have set foot in celebrated shrines and temples, and forgotten ones, too. I have followed well-beaten pathways and discovered some hidden away by trees and by time. I have immersed my feet in waters that were the same ones Basho the poet and his present-day descendants dipped their toes in. The greatest thing you can take away from seeing the world is probably also the most intangible thing you will carry with you for the rest of your life. It is easy enough to come back home with photographs, keepsakes, and stories wherever we go. But how many of us can really say we have come back better human beings? By stepping foot outside our walls and partaking in the world, we somehow subtract a bit from ourselves and leave them where we just were, this adds somehow to the earth's gravitational rotation. This is why the world spins: we take the best bits of ourselves, and we pass it on to the next person.
I will always hold a special place in my soul for Japan. Like the torii ?? that marks the entrance to a Shinto shrine, it was a gateway into the rest of the world for me. Yet this world is far, far too big for me to ever go back to that place I started.