Exploring Uncertainty with Qi Lin
By Immaculate Regina Sikanyika
For many people, travelling is measured by the number of destinations they visit but often seen as an opportunity to step away from daily routines and embrace leisure, relaxation and new experiences.
For photographer Qi Lin, however, travelling is about much more than visiting different places but about embracing uncertainty, encountering new ideas, experiencing unfamiliar moments and creating memories that he can preserve through the click of his camera.
Qi Lin, a writer and freelance photographer, describes travelling as an integral part of his life.
His passion for travel began during childhood, when he accompanied his father in his lorry to different places. What started as regular journeys gradually developed into a deep fascination with exploration and discovery.
Over time, his interest in travelling grew into a passion for chasing uncertainty and encountering new possibilities. For Qi, the attraction is not necessarily the destinations themselves, but the different situations, experiences and opportunities that each place presents.
Uncertainty has therefore become a central theme of his travels and one of the reasons he chose to become a freelance photographer. Through his camera, he is able to explore and document the beauty of nature while capturing moments that might otherwise disappear.
Qi says that whenever he feels an impulse to do something, he follows it without hesitation. His encounters with new people, lifestyles, cultures and traditions have continued to inspire his travels from the very beginning.
He describes travelling as his comfort zone and a form of therapy that contributes to his personal growth and development. Although he finds it difficult to fully express its impact in words, he says travelling gives him a greater sense of physical and mental awareness.
For Qi, walking for several days while talking to himself eventually becomes less about reaching a destination and more about communing with himself. The physical journey becomes a journey inward, allowing him to discover more about himself, view his life through different lenses and reconnect with himself physically, psychologically and spiritually.
However, Qi acknowledges that travelling is not always smooth or enjoyable. In fact, he says it can be overwhelming for much of the journey, sometimes leaving him wanting to give up from beginning to end. Yet giving up can be just as difficult and costly as continuing.
He recalls this experience during his camel-hiking expedition in Kenya, where he spent about three months crossing the Chalbi Desert, an experience documented in his book, The Camel Diaries.
The journey was physically demanding, but he was ultimately faced with a choice: turn back and see his efforts go to waste, or continue and experience the rewards at the end of the journey.
Qi Lin’s travels demonstrate that uncertainty can be a powerful force for discovery. His experiences offer a deeper understanding of travel that goes beyond conventional ideas about tourism and destinations.
For him, travelling is an opportunity to encounter unfamiliar realities, challenge personal limits, discover oneself and, ultimately, develop a profound connection with nature and become one with it.
