A Truthful Travel Writing Project

One of the most important aspects of this project is a kind of archaeology of meaning: an attempt at writing about cultural and natural history in the context of our shared reality — through traveling to the places where that history emerged, and through telling the corresponding stories and what they might mean for our present and future. Therefore, the name “travel4stories” says it all. It alludes to the overlapping etymology of our modern expressions “history” and “story”. Both derive from ancient Greek ancestor words: the legal term “ἵστωρ” was in use at least since Homeric pre-classical times in the first half of the 1st millenium BC, meaning “judge”, “witness” or “someone who takes an oath”. Derived from it, “ἱστορία”, was in use at least since Aristotelian classical times, meaning “inquiry” or “account from inquiry” in the sense of an objective written testimony. The Romans adopted the Greek word as their Latin “historia”, bestowing it with an even broader plurality of meaning: “investigation”, “research”, in the sense of a scientific “narrative”, especially a “historical narrative”. It is in this eymological sense, that the subject of historiography, ermerging as a speciality of all ancient civilizations (Greeks and Romans, but also Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Persians, Indians, Chinese, etc.), stands at the very root of human “storytelling”. Our own history was maybe the first story we as humans ever told each other. We have some very old extant examples of that kind of historiography: notably the floral and theological variety of the Homeric epic poems. And then the slightly more sober, even proto-scientific variety of Herodot and Thykidides. But most of our ancient storytelling hasn´t survived or at least not in written form. Think about Aboriginal “Walkabouts”.

But is it an ambiguity anyway? Between “history” and “story”, the division seems to be much less a yawning chasm than a semipermeable mirror. The seemingly clear contrast is actually a dazzling construct. All too often, the opposition becomes a congruence of meanings. Just think of the notorious frauds, forgeries, plagiarisms and other bad habits like “filling the gaps” in travel writing, journalism and even works of science. Still today, just short of 3000 years after Homer, the ancient oath in “ἵστωρ” still resonates in us. If we redirect our attention just a little bit, we´re able to recognize the ancient ideal: that a “story” should really be a “truthful account”, given by a “faithful witness”. No matter what “story” we read or hear, we do wish for its “teller” to be some kind of sworn-in judge or witness, who — after sufficient inquiry and adequate consideration — gives us nothing but their truthful testimony. Even if we enjoy a fictional story, we don´t want to hear obvious, blatant lies. We´d much rather experience the tale as if it were true.

Travel4stories is a project about “history” and “stories”, but at the same time it strives to adhere to the ancient connotation of stories as “truthful accounts”, given by a “faithful witness”. We live in times of immense societal and ecological turmoil and disintegration. Many of our “stories” have failed us (or we failed them). Much of our “history” seems ripe for abandonment (and some should have been abandoned long ago, as some native societies might have taught us). We are being lied to, and we play our own part in the fabrication of this web of lies that we call society. Consciously or subconsciously, we´re all preparing for the dawning anomic and turbulent times that will result from our outdated and fragmented historical identity and from our rejection of sane self-regulatory values for our future.

And yet: a joint return to truthfulness both in our “history” and in our “stories” could be one of the most powerful remedies at our disposal to make this “story” end well after all. ■