According to the editor of a 1930s illustrated magazine (essentially, a comic book) of scientific tales called Astounding Stories of Super-Science, “the only real difference between the astounding and the commonplace [is] Time.” In his introduction to the first issue Harold Bates, that editor, notes:
“… if you lived in Europe in 1490, and someone told you the earth was round and moved around the sun—that would have been an "astounding" story. Or if you lived in 1840, and were told that some day men a thousand miles apart would be able to talk to each other through a little wire—or without any wire at all—that would have been another. Or if, in 1900, they predicted ocean-crossing airplanes and submarines, world-girdling Zeppelins, sixty-story [sic.] buildings, radio, metal that can be made to resist gravity and float in the air—these would have been other "astounding" stories.”*
Time makes the astounding commonplace. It does that not only with technological advances, but also with human relationships. Maybe that’s the primary reason for getaways. People like being astounded by the thought of a relationship. When astonishment fades with time, couples seek ways to renew. And there’s no shortage of renewal methods and renewal places, some quite pricey.
Because humans have been around for a long time, there’s little new under the sun. Astonishing someone in a commonplace relationship can rarely be original. Often, the renewal of astonishment takes place in an unfamiliar setting. Renewing astonishment is difficult in well-known environs.
Apparently, for many people place is key to renewal: A new place, at least temporarily, means new astonishment. But in most instances and for most couples, time will once again do its work. Once-new environs can become commonplace. We are restless creatures looking toward an imagined “super-science” future in which “world-girdling Zeppelins” can soar above “sixty-storey buildings.”
It’s our lot. The need for astonishment seems to be deep-seated. Who knows where we picked it up along the path of evolution? But the need is in there, gene-deep, and its presence is probably linked to breakups, infidelities, separations, and divorces between once astonished partners who allowed the astounding to turn into the commonplace.
That we look for the astounding in new places has to make travel agents happy. They profit from a seemingly irresistible drive in humans to renew relationships by going to a new physical setting. Maybe most, if not all, getaways, dates, and vacations serve the same fundamental purpose: Turning the commonplace into the astounding for a moment.
In a relationship of some kind? Astounded? No? Try a new place.
* Bates, Harry, Ed., Astounding Stories of Super-Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, January, 1930. W. M. Clayton, Publisher. Online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41481/41481-h/41481-h.htm#Introducing
“… if you lived in Europe in 1490, and someone told you the earth was round and moved around the sun—that would have been an "astounding" story. Or if you lived in 1840, and were told that some day men a thousand miles apart would be able to talk to each other through a little wire—or without any wire at all—that would have been another. Or if, in 1900, they predicted ocean-crossing airplanes and submarines, world-girdling Zeppelins, sixty-story [sic.] buildings, radio, metal that can be made to resist gravity and float in the air—these would have been other "astounding" stories.”*
Time makes the astounding commonplace. It does that not only with technological advances, but also with human relationships. Maybe that’s the primary reason for getaways. People like being astounded by the thought of a relationship. When astonishment fades with time, couples seek ways to renew. And there’s no shortage of renewal methods and renewal places, some quite pricey.
Because humans have been around for a long time, there’s little new under the sun. Astonishing someone in a commonplace relationship can rarely be original. Often, the renewal of astonishment takes place in an unfamiliar setting. Renewing astonishment is difficult in well-known environs.
Apparently, for many people place is key to renewal: A new place, at least temporarily, means new astonishment. But in most instances and for most couples, time will once again do its work. Once-new environs can become commonplace. We are restless creatures looking toward an imagined “super-science” future in which “world-girdling Zeppelins” can soar above “sixty-storey buildings.”
It’s our lot. The need for astonishment seems to be deep-seated. Who knows where we picked it up along the path of evolution? But the need is in there, gene-deep, and its presence is probably linked to breakups, infidelities, separations, and divorces between once astonished partners who allowed the astounding to turn into the commonplace.
That we look for the astounding in new places has to make travel agents happy. They profit from a seemingly irresistible drive in humans to renew relationships by going to a new physical setting. Maybe most, if not all, getaways, dates, and vacations serve the same fundamental purpose: Turning the commonplace into the astounding for a moment.
In a relationship of some kind? Astounded? No? Try a new place.
* Bates, Harry, Ed., Astounding Stories of Super-Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, January, 1930. W. M. Clayton, Publisher. Online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41481/41481-h/41481-h.htm#Introducing
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