The Norwegian theologian, priest and author, Åsta Dokka does not like going on holiday abroad.
She says she realized early on that it wasn’t for her.
“When, as a student, I found myself once in London, I was very surprised at my complete lack of enthusiasm,” she wrote in Our country.
But even though Dokka doesn’t personally think traveling abroad is for her, she doesn’t think it should be for other people either.
“For most, traveling abroad is more than getting your fill of vitamin D and family connections. It’s pretty hot in Norway in the summer, and most people don’t have a dying mother by the lake. of Como as they do duty see you this summer”, writes the priest.
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Of course, it is climate change that worries the theologian Dokka. She believes we are destroying the planet by taking a trip south.
“However, whatever we may think of holidays abroad, we know that they will have to end in their current form and extent. Not only is the Norwegian economy doing a little too well and politicians want us to have less to do to reduce the borrowing rate and consumption But mass transfer is also completely impossible from a climate point of view Much of our destruction of the planet seems quite impossible to change without also changing social order as a whole or inventing many new technologies. But touring the south is really a totally unnecessary contribution to the destruction of the globe,” Dokka writes.
The priest imagines that instead of going to Málaga for a bit of sun and summer, one can sit in the rain in Bergen and undertake “an inner journey”.
“One can make great inner journeys without moving the body. In 1884, the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans wrote the novel Against a current. Here, the main character decides to cross the English Channel. Usually he lives very isolated, but he prepares his travel bag, puts on a British habit, imagines how the next few days will be and settles his anger with the neighboring country. At the Paris station, he dines in an English restaurant, looks around him and returns home. He has already made his trip in his head, and does not want to spoil it by getting on the ferry,” concludes theologian Åsta Dokka.
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