Travel

It seems to be a question that I get asked a fair bit - "have you done any traveling?" Traveling in this sense can be broken down to have one of two meanings. The first is backpacking and really getting a feel for the local culture, total immersion in a way of life for an extended period of time, all that bollocks. The second, somewhat frowned upon, meaning is that of a tourist epitomised by the package tourist in a resort who will eat in McDonald's every day and drinks in Irish bars.

Before I start my viciously personal attack I will for the record say that I have no objection to going to places, talking to strangers (while taking all relevant precautions) and learning about other cultures. With that out of the way, fuck the irritating cunts who espouse the first. It is my fondest wish that you end up in a very cultural human sacrifice or sold into slavery for your temerity. I get it, you may like travel - you may genuinely enjoy the experience and as a result like me with chin-ups may think that everybody should do more. Again like me with chin-ups just because that is how you feel it does not make you less of a cunt.

"Have you traveled much?"

Because surely you have done some traveling? By travel I mean, immersing yourself in a culture, living like the citizens. You know really experiencing their lives. How can you have an opinion on life if you haven't seen as much of it as you can? How can you know anything about yourself if you haven't traveled? If you haven't been in those situations. No, not a tourist. I think of myself as a traveler not as somebody going to a resort.

Fuck off.

As I near my thirties and especially as I seek out that special someone to spend the years between now and my spiral into a rage filled senility I find myself confronted with travel. It's not just conversational it's a moment of judgement. Social convention and laws governing the use of force stop me smiting the smug fuckers asking this question, and all its implied sub questions and statements, but someday I hope they catch some heretofore unheard of, exotic plague.

I'm not against going places. I don't like to have to organise things. I don't like the actual process of traveling. I don't like struggling to be understood in a foreign country. Rarely has the payoff of going to places exceeded the emotional and physical cost of going. So while I'm not against it I'm not really up for it. That's a personal choice and if it were just left at that I wouldn't be in the middle of an angry rant.

Somehow all of this became a rite of passage. Maybe it was disposable income and the economy. Accompanying the shift from the struggle to get a job, any job, that our parents faced to the new struggle to get a job that completes us and lets us express ourselves in ever more startling and creative ways. As an aside, I sometimes don't like working either. These shifts have led inexorably to anyone who doesn't gush at going to work and hasn't traveled extensively being unworthy of the attention of the self righteous cunts who have traveled and love their fulfilling jobs.

I'm a zealot for all sorts of things. For example I think chin-ups are fantastic. I think everyone should do them. I think they'll make you better in the sense that "you with stronger arms" is better than "you right now". I can't see any spiritual or emotional development in them and I don't think they take you any closer to enlightenment than not doing them other than that time passes while you're doing them and as we age we get perspective.

So with that in mind, what infuriates me the most about the headline statements above is that as a wealthy westerner who can afford to go travel and see the world, you are so far removed from the poor locals that you cannot live their plight you can only observe. The fact that you have a backpack instead of being one of the stuffy old English explorers with six Pygmys to carry his luggage takes you only fractionally closer to the experience. So little that I'll still bring my Pygmys.

The idea that it grounds you and lets you know more about yourself offends me. When you take away the constraints of people that know you, their expectations and the pressure of having to live in a community where your actions have consequences then your actions are meaningless. Lone Ranger types coming and going never have to worry about that and act accordingly. The villagers staying in the whipped up mess the Lone Ranger has left are the real heroes effecting real social change.

Like a fulfilling career or parenthood, travel has become the right thing to do. Not an option so much as a rite of passage. When did that happen? Why did it have to happen to something I have no interest in doing? Why couldn't getting knocked out in a boxing match be the rite of passage? I've done that.

I understand that when you like something you think everyone else should like it. In my case - chin-ups, large dogs, bluegrass and complaining. I understand you will enjoy talking about it but don't dare, don't fucking dare pretend that it is something you have to do before you get old or that it somehow makes you a better person.