Read the Kindness of Strangers

Travel writers are saturating our libraries and attempting to pass off as wizened Marco Polos, well-read on the tragedies and splendors of our depreciating globe. I want to be one of them.

What fascinates me about travel is its transmorphic nature. It began as a necessity, when nomads followed their food sources: the delicious Wooly Mammoths. Then it became something of luxury and adventure. Exploration cost money, and due to Feudalism, money was available only to the highest echelon. Poor travelers could explore, but only through trappings of slavery and servitude, a sorry trade-off. Come steam-liners, trains and "the floating develry," airplanes, travel was possible, but still mainly possible for the affluent. Those poor who did travel didn't refer to it as "travel," more "heading West to pick oranges because the damn dust has destroyed my crops." It wasn't a luxury, but a necessity.

Now, travel has come full circle. The poor are able to travel to the same places as the rich, to traipse without any thought otherwise. Those poor have comprised the large portion of our travel writers.

Travel writers are nomadic variations, in search of perfection and the puzzle that completes their piece; they traverse our globe, shaggy as Wooly Mammoths, looking for their elixir. They regale us with tales of happiness, plight and perplexation. Overall, to be a travel writer is transcendent, nouveau transcendentalism. These lucky bastards are able to dispel their American arrogance and shapeshift themselves into any country not barred due to martial law, and under certain guises, even those countries are open to them.

There is a poignant scene in Good Will Hunting (I will fight anyone to the death who denies that this scene is the last great movie scene Hollywood produced, let alone greatest movie), where Robin Williams and Matt Damon sit on a bench near Bunker Hill campus overlooking the Swan Boats and Williams tells Damon that he was up late in the night assaulting his brain cells with Jack Daniels contemplating the supposed oppressive genius and manipulation of Damon's bravado-infested character, Will Hunting. William's character, Sean, then continues, saying:

Then something occurred to me and I fell into a
deep peaceful sleep and haven't
thought about you since. You know
what occurred to me?

WILL
No.

SEAN
You're just a boy. You don't have
the faintest idea what you're talking
about.

WILL
Why thank you.

SEAN
You've never been out of Boston.

WILL
No.

SEAN
So if I asked you about art you could
give me the skinny on every art book
ever written... Michelangelo? You
know a lot about him I bet. Life's
work, criticisms, political
aspirations. But you couldn't tell
me what it smells like in the Sistine
Chapel. You've never stood there and
looked up at that beautiful ceiling.
You've never actually stood there and
looked up at that beautiful ceiling;
seen that.

Within this dialogue is the truth about travel. Reading about it is one thing, it's like watching porn. You think, is this it? Then you leave your computer and your safehouse, establish intimacy, romance, love and heartbreak and then you look back and tell yourself: "not even close."



-Mozart