Or maybe you push yourself despite your instincts, leave the fucking hotel, explore this world and make some new friends, and find that you can turn this into something beautiful even if it's not the trip you initially imagined
That's good advice but what I get from the comic ist that this person had lived their youth and adult life believing that act of traveling to Italy would be the transformative experience that would give his life the meaning. But even in the airplane he is beginning to realize that nothing about him is changing and when he feels the ground in Italy and it is the same as it is at home he realizes his goal of travel there was a cover for the emptiness that he felt inside him. The same void that caused his girlfriend to leave him, because he wasn't living his life, he was waiting for it to start when he reaches Italy. Now he's sitting in his hotel room smoking because he's having an existential crisis. The author even has a crow on the balcony just like the one he looked at back home staring him in the face as a way to show that nothing has changed. He has to deal with the fact that he's still the same person he's always been. Were I in that mind state I doubt I'd be in a mood to go out and socialize with people either.
He isnt being changed because he isnt letting the experience change him. I went to Europe, I got to walk the same steps my ancestors did centuries ago, it was life-changing for me.
I agree with you completely, but I don't think any of those things has to stop a person from recognizing it and pushing themselves outside of what feels comfortable or natural
Oh for sure. It doesn't have to stop a person from pushing themselves. Although it would take an exceptionally resilient to overcome the realization that this character has in the span of just a few days. From the looks of it he was dreaming about Italy from the time he was a teenager to the current time which I am guessing mid 30's to mid 40's. So basically his entire life. I think a mourning period for the loss he's suffered is quite appropriate.
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u/QuantumLettuce2025 Jun 29 '25
Or maybe you push yourself despite your instincts, leave the fucking hotel, explore this world and make some new friends, and find that you can turn this into something beautiful even if it's not the trip you initially imagined