Blog | Tristan Kernan

“That some of us should venture to embark on a synthesis of facts and theories, albeit with second-hand and incomplete knowledge of some of them – and at the risk of making fools of ourselves” (Erwin Schrödinger)

Greece

I am currently writing this from a breezy apartment in Heraklion, Greece. I'm spending a little over two weeks in Greece, traveling solo at the start and having a friend join me later.

Itinerary

I worked with Claude on my travel plans, starting at a high level (deciding on Greece as the destination) and then diving into specifics (places within Greece, timeline of stays). As a travel partner, Claude / LLMs are great - not always accurate, but typically provide a good enough starting point to figure it out. Beyond planning I've leveraged LLMs as makeshift tour guides, as they're generally more informative than museum placards, and social etiquette coaches, especially helpful as an American in Europe.

For 16 days in Greece, here's my itinerary:

Something I've learned about travel is there's a huge difference between the abstract knowledge of the trip, and the actual reality of the trip. As an example, the above itinerary felt right when planning, but I now would changed up the distribution of nights, shaving time off Heraklion and Athens for a visit to another island, or extending the stay on Naxos. This is my general experience of travel, though - I don't know what the experience of the place I'm visiting is until I actually visit!

For transit:

Public transit has been reliable and cheap - I haven't taken a cab ride yet (though without a phone number, I can't sign up for freenow 🙄). Public transit isn't as nice or fast as private service, but I'm in no rush this trip.

Odds and Ends

I used a luggage storage service for the first time, which was convenient as I carry two backpacks when I travel (large one behind, small one in front). Unloading my large bag was a boon as it enabled me to stay mobile and explore for a few more hours, rather than feel compelled to hunker down with my bags in a cafe.

Experiences

So far, some highlights of my trip have included the Acropolis + museum, the Ancient Agora, the Athens Archeological Museum, the old Venetian port at Chania, and a day trip to Balos Lagoon + Gramvousa.

I did a tour group for the Acropolis, which I didn't find particularly moving. Most of the information I had already read before, and the guide wasn't energetic. I rank all tours against my experience at the Greenwich Observatory, where the tour guide was clearly passionate about the history and subject matter. Tour aside, the Acropolis is an impressive monument of history, of hubris: not long after its completion, Athens was defeated, never to rise again to its golden age glory.

I was summarily impressed by Chania - I had no expectations about Crete, having seen it only from travel vlogs. The old town is charming in the truest sense, and the harbor lit up at night is delightful. The city is exactly what I imagined a European port city to be. I also did not realize how close the beaches were, nor their quality: the water is pristine, the clearest I've ever seen. Taking the bus to Kissamos Port I realized that the beaches extend endlessly, with the waterfront covered by hotel and resort sprawl, some nestled onto idyllic cliffs. On the ferry to Balos, the striking mountainous peninsula was awesome. I laid in the water in Balos, perfectly shallow.

Insights

A week with just myself, out of my usual environs, has created plenty of space for insights and awareness into myself. Specifically about environment, I see that the grooves of my daily habits and rituals induce a kind of stupor or cloud that makes self awareness challenging. When traveling outside of my home / culture, just about every interaction and situation is new enough that I am conscientious with a kind of stark contrast to view my own behavior.

I noticed that I am always going somewhere in particular, always have a destination in mind - if I am going to eat, I have the restaurant in mind, if I am at the museum, I am glued to the guide. There's a spectrum of behavior here; in the past I detailed my itineraries down to the day, while now I am more flexible with showing up and trusting that I'll figure out my activities.

Ah, that word gets to the root of so much for me - trust. I have to actively recollect that I was quite fearful that I would not succeed in solo travel, that I'd be miserable and come home early. And now that I have demonstrated that I am capable, my fears have aptly moved onto the next object for speculation.

The common theme being constant motion, direction, activity - chasing one experience after another, fearing one phantom after another. I'm constantly going and doing, spurred on by an internal, infernal drive, an innate dissatisfaction that I'm looking to resolve.

Wisdom is the knowledge that enables making better choices. It can be taught, but it's not easy to accept - I think that's an aspect of the human condition, and gets at why despite vaster and more impressive knowledge than ever before, the perfect world (for an individual or collective) cannot be educated into existence. Some truths are learned through experience. In my case, it's the experience of chasing after satisfaction through external means (alternatively, chasing after resolution of my dissatisfaction through external means).

Which leads to the unsatisfying conclusion that change, healing, recovery, takes time, and sometimes quite a lot of it. My internal structures were woven and reinforced through decades of experiences. To imagine a quick resolution is to mistake form for content: with the perfect life circumstances (girlfriend, job, apartment, etc.) I'd be just as dissatisfied as I am today, as I am the constant. Weaving new structures, unraveling the old, is a tender and delicate process, itself enjoyable as I come to realize that there is no end state anyway, that satisfaction is possible even now.

A significant element to be restructured is my perception of myself and others. This trip has once again shown me that I am constantly projecting, interacting not with the person but a fantasy of my own creation. These fantasies, stories that I've written and read so many times that I became a true believer, mirror my own inner world. When I operate from a perspective of fear and insecurity, all I see in others are fear and insecurity, or their opposite, supreme and total confidence. I treat myself as if I am unique, which became humorously apparent when I thought myself the only person to ever drop a piece of cucumber at a meal - for a moment I really imagined myself to be terminally unique.

By rewriting this narrative into one of commonality and shared experience I start to open myself to myself and view others as human beings with inner worlds just as rich as my own. I start to open myself to richer relationships with others, relationships that reflect and reaffirm in mutually reinforcing feedback that I'm okay, that I always have been, and I always will be.

spirals interconnected

I believe the creators of this artwork understood what I am talking about. Spirals interconnected - each individual an infinity, with depth and richness of existence, connected to every other, a connection that both feeds and is fed by the other; a connection small yet critical.