Why do people travel? This passion has captured the imagination of many, but it originated in society long ago. But why? To try to understand why Homo sapiens seemingly move around the world, let's digress for a moment and then return to this topic. Let's look at the world of human emotions from an evolutionary perspective. Such a pedantic approach will surely provoke an instinctive revulsion in some audiences, especially women. It probably already is, but what can you do? You can't please everyone...

So, about the evolution of feelings in nature. It's natural to begin with carnal love, as the most powerful and understandable emotion. Just please, don't mention things like "not everyone can love," "love and sex shouldn't be equated," and so on. I suppose I agree with all of that, but that's not what we're talking about here. Attraction to the opposite sex emerged simultaneously with the emergence of hermaphroditic beings. The reasons for this are obvious, so let's not belabor the point. This feeling is inherent in all "hermaphroditic" living nature; humans didn't acquire it, but inherited it. In the society of conscious beings, it only became more complex, acquired new colors, and became relatively independent of the process of procreation. In the sense that humans have learned to control reproduction, a natural result of love. And don't mention homosexuality—animals have it too.

Or love for children. Who hasn't seen the tender care of puppies and kittens from their parents? Who hasn't heard of a mother bear willing to die protecting her cubs? How a partridge distracts a hunter from a nest with chicks? The desire to build and improve a home ("to build a nest"), a love of cooking (so popular today), a love of fishing, hunting, and sports—all these are passions of the same "primal," animal nature.

But there are, nevertheless, feelings unique to humans, unparalleled in the animal kingdom. Frankly, I've always been drawn to people capable of them. One of the most fundamental is the instinct of exploration, simply curiosity. There were experiments where a baby was taught to turn its head in the right direction to receive milk. The baby learned easily and knew exactly how to behave, but sometimes it still turned the wrong way. Scientists couldn't figure out the reason for this for a long time. Then they found a very simple explanation: the baby was curious, wondering what would happen next. Experimenters had never been able to do this with animals, even with clever monkeys. Or, another example, the love for the elderly—superfluous, completely useless mouths. But it turns out that for people, not everything is determined by the amount of food. Remember the film "The Legend of Narayama"?

The "urge to wander" is also a relatively "new" feeling, developed in human society and unparalleled in the animal kingdom. And don't remind me of migratory birds; they have absolutely nothing to do with it. Animals are forced to migrate for food and warmth, not for information, impressions, or discoveries. If they can avoid migrating, they stay put. Even some ducks are too lazy to fly away, trying to winter in cities, staying behind, and quite often freezing to death as white mounds on the ice of bodies of water.

Living in the same place forever is boring. And boredom is the primary driver of creativity throughout history. Reread the opening pages of the Old Testament, and you'll be left with no doubt that our entire world was created out of boredom (if you want, consider this a frivolous joke, God forgive me!)). Therefore, a love of travel, as a reliable cure for boredom, is inherent in creatively inclined people. Perhaps it can even (to some extent) replace the creative process. Don't let a creator create – they'll inevitably start traveling. If, of course, you allow them to move. Very often, a lazy creative person is a travel enthusiast. They're too lazy to create, but have plenty of energy for travel. And this passion ranks quite high on the evolutionary ladder of human emotions, somewhere just behind the need to explore and create something new. I think so, and I like to think so, because I love to travel myself.

And what do you think?