Einstein on the Beach Taught Me How to Travel

I used to watch a lot of theatre. One of the most interesting experiences I’ve had was seeing Einstein on the Beach — the legendary opera created by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, which premiered in 1976.

I use the word opera loosely. Einstein on the Beach runs for four and a half to five hours with no intermission. The scenes are abstract. The dialogue is largely incoherent. For the first fifteen minutes I was convinced I was watching the biggest load of rubbish I’d ever seen in my life.

Then something unexpected happened.

I started to drift — not quite asleep, but somewhere close. And in that state, the show came alive. It wasn’t operating on normal time. It had its own rhythm, slower and stranger than anything I was used to. Once I stopped fighting it and surrendered to that rhythm, it became genuinely extraordinary.

They say Einstein on the Beach teaches you how to watch it. You can’t approach it on your own terms. You have to let it set the terms.

Travel is the same.

If you arrive somewhere that runs on island time — a village in Greece, a beach town in Vietnam, a small Vendée commune in France — and you spend your days fighting the pace, you’ll miss everything. The moment you surrender to the rhythm of a place, it opens up.

Time is not constant for all observers. Einstein knew that. Philip Glass knew that.

So do the best travelers.

Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder

Stories – Wake Up Here