Actually, Smith points out, pilgrimage is an inward journey -- but in some paradoxical way "it helps to objectify it by holding it at arm's length," so to speak. "So," he suggests, "target a distant place--your Mecca, your Jerusalem, your Mount Meru -- and set out. You needn't don a hairshirt, for obstacles enough will erupt."

If you doubt this, you, too, should try traveling as part of a 16-headed amoebae-like mass. We were not a docile bunch. My sisters and I jokingly set up a system for ourselves at the journey's start in the Newark airport: only one person could be in possession of the over-functioning baton at a time and only one person could hold the under-functioning baton. Both would start to buzz if you clung to them too long.

(Looking around at the teenagers, it occurred to us that perhaps the under-functioning baton might also need to come equipped with a jab on the end.) Ultimately, we added a third baton: the "question authority" baton, whereby one person at a time could provide useful critique for the person holding the over-functioning baton.

"G.K. Chesterton once noted that human beings "can acquire everything in solitude, except character."