Evelyn Klebert

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. – Robert Louis Stevenson

It is a perplexing problem why as human beings we cling so desperately to what is familiar, even at the expense of our own peace of mind. Even in a landscape of the fantastical, as in An Uneasy Traveler, the main character Aubrey Mason who has at her fingertips access to an unseen world that lays largely hidden from the general populace falls into this very compelling trap. As a psychic and a sensitive who can lay open the connective thread that binds us all together, she instead chooses to live her own life largely in isolation separated from human personal contact.

I chose to explore this very common phenomenon in the landscape of a fictional world. Self-fulfillment versus perceived safety, the comfort of the familiar. To say Aubrey Mason is in a rut covers it minimally. To say she has crafted a self-imposed exile designed to insulate her from pain is a bit more to the point. Rather than focusing on her uniqueness, I choose to examine her as a representative of the world and of the not unique human desire to cling to familiarity and avoid change at all cost. It can be seen on an individual level; it can be seen on a global level. Countries less interested in walking into a new world, but instead fighting to the death to preserve old, untenable ideas. The unknown does indeed have the potential for pain, failure, but the familiar that is disintegrating and inflexible has the guarantee of stagnation. As in the case of Aubrey Mason, there must be growth or there is no future. But sometimes and how often we resist what we know must be.