Last week, I finished reading, La fine e’ il mio inizio (The end is my beginning), a wonderful book by Tiziano Terzani, an Italian journalist . As a fellow writer and world enthusiast, I found his books incredibly poignant as at the end of his life he chose to travel inward rather than trot the globe. I took heed and implemented his introspective journey.

Terzani did interviews with his son during his last three months of life as he was dying from cancer. After reporting from the Vietnam war, the Khmer Rouge massacres in Cambodia, China after the Cultural Revolution and many other Asian countries, he stopped being interested in foreign affairs. He saw that revolutions never reached the ideals of the founders. The political rhetoric of the Bush administration supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were the same political platitudes he heard in Vietnam. Wars just repeated themselves and politicians rarely had any novel and effective policies. He saw that the only way to change the world for the better was to concentrate on oneself.

Before reading his last words, I read his earlier book, “Un altro giro di giostra”, (Another ride on the merry go round). When Tiziano Terzani got diagnosed with cancer, he saw that his terminal disease wasn’t just a death sentence, but an opportunity to see his life in a new way. He wanted to understand what caused his cancer. He realized that much of the developed world and those seeking to become like rich materialist countries were killing themselves in their constant rush to amass money and objects. Cancer was so prevalent in the US because of our poor eating habits and rat race lifestyle. He realized that he had to slow down and enjoy his remaining time on earth. Knowing that he was dying from cancer, he isolated himself in a hamlet in the Himalayas with a local man who taught him meditation, he felt like he was liberating himself.

I pondered heavily on his thoughts from both books. As part of my desire to travel the world (47 countries and counting) was to find my Atlantis , an ideal socio-political-economic system, I wondered if I too, needed to look more inside myself than outside for inspiration.

Having been born into a communist country that both discriminated against me for being Jewish and provided my parents with a free professional and cultural education, I knew that despite the faults of Communism, the system had some benefits. Without the free Soviet education, my father, who came from a poor family, would have never had the chance to become and engineer and attend the opera, symphony and ballet on a frequent basis. I traveled to many former and current Communist countries to see why my parents fled the land of Lenin. I saw the horrors (political repression, defunct factories, inefficient infrastructure, poor housing options, etc.) and the gems of the system (free education and health care, free and low-cost cultural venues, high literacy, no or little homelessness, etc.) Growing up in the US, with the freedom of speech and economic opportunities available in the capitalist democracy, I also knew its fruits quite well. But neither system offered a good combination of social liberty, good education and economic opportunity. I looked to another part of the Old World for a middle of the road option. France, the Western European country I know the best, did attract me, but I always felt like a foreigner in France no matter “almost perfect” my French accent was. Even placid and hyper efficient Japan did not excite me. While observing elections in post-Orange Revolution Ukraine, I met many Ukrainians who didn’t see their lives improve after the Orange Revolution reformers opened up civil society and stopped government censorship. I wondered how effective revolutions are in changing society for the best. No matter where I turned there was no Atlantis.

My wanderlust was not completely fueled by my quest to seek a better place to live or social model to copy, so my desire to see the world has not ended just because I have realized that there is no idyllic place. (I am writing this while sitting on the floor of the United Airlines Terminal at the Chicago O’Hare Airport with my back to the wall, next to the gate door.)

In the past few months, I have become much calmer and even more introspective. I am not yearning to travel as much as before, nor am I constantly dreaming of new locales and counting the days for a new trip. I am much happier to stay in the South Bay Area and ride my bike than ever before. I see that I am filtering out people from my life who are dead weights, complainers, and who don’t inspire me and challenge me to be at my best. I am much more confident in myself and where I am going with my publishing. I am less dependent on outside stimulation, validation, and support to chart my own path. Terzani’s books also made me less demanding of myself. I realized I needed to breathe deeper and not be so worried about how to publish my books and make a writing career.

The outside voyager is discovering her inner world.