The "Old" Gulliver

Lemuel Gulliver lived in interesting times.  As the principle character in Gulliver's Travels, his four voyages in the early 18th Century took him to many foreign lands and exposed him to some rather bizarre beings and events. 
Shipwrecks and rescues; wars and peace; exotic terrain and barren landscape; grand parties and violent uprisings; royalty and serfdom; lust and disgust; giant people and tiny people; great minds and small minds; intellectual arrogance and numbing brutality; honor and treachery; voyeurism and isolationism; beauty and ugliness – Gulliver saw it all. 

To the degree that this original Gulliver chronicled the age-old human experience, he was the universal "Traveler."  But for all of his adventures, he was not "wise to the world."  He was naive – gullible Gulliver – often manipulated, prone to bask in the false praise of bootlickers and slow to see the tangled webs of adversaries.  He saw the world in black and white terms.  He wasn't stupid, certainly, being a physician, a mariner, and a talented linguist. Nor did he lack courage.  But his questions didn't run deep enough.  Nor did he improvise well, instead allowing blustery winds or clever people to either take advantage of him or bail him out of trouble.  He became increasingly distraught at the condition of Humankind, and ever more alienated from friends and family. 

So for all of his wanderings, he was not happy.  For all of his observations, he was not wise.  For all of his travails, he was not crafty.  He meandered, bumbled, and chronicled, but neither offered nor received "enrichment." He bobbed in the waves, but didn't roll with them; he blew in the wind, but didn't harness it.

His is the fate we must all avoid.  We can choose to be "New Gullivers":  conscious "Travelers" making informed decisions and taking emboldened actions.