"Tell Me Where It is Gone"

The one drawback to Deep Travel that some people have pointed to is its impermanence. Within twenty- four hours" of the end of a vacation—according to Thomas Mann's lament—"it is as if we were never gone and our journey were merely last night's dream." According to an ancient short poem by the eighth- century Muslim scholar Hasan of Basra, the disappearance of something can be fully explained only by understanding its origins and purposes and how it operates—"seeing everything" by observing it from within a far longer present moment or Deep Now: I saw a child carrying a light. I asked him where he had brought it from. He put it out, and said:"Now you tell me where it is gone.""Motility," or spontaneous motion, the opposite of sessility, confers innumerable benefits: it takes animals to feeding grounds, to breeding grounds, to safe havens, and to many other places.