Don't Be This Guy Who Travels

There's this post that's going around, called "Date a Guy Who Travels." It contains some good values. Experiences are more valuable than things, but that's the rule for Millennials, not the exception. The curiosity for the world and knowledge of the poverty people have to go through all over the world are good qualities as well. Being flexible and adventurous, looking for possibilities and leaving the comfort zone are all qualities to be admired. There are some beautiful sentiments and beautiful pieces of writing in the post.

And yet it rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it because, as an ex-pat and sometime-traveler, I have known many travelers who embody many of the actions described in the post, if few of the ideals.

I have known guys who scoff at resorts when they have never been to a resort.

I have never known a guy who scoffs at vacations. Who does that?

I have known guys who dismiss travel guides because they, "probably know the guy who wrote them."

I have known guys who fail to realize that using a "travel guide" as a "reference" is redundant.

I have known many guys whose number of Facebook friends is negatively correlated with their number real friends.

I have known guys who have lived in Southeast Asia for years, but have never traveled in Malaysia. This has as much to do with the anti-drinking laws and Islamaphobia as it does with the relative expense.

I have known guys who are always announcing new things they've discovered in loud and enthusiastic tones, only to clam up if you'd already heard of them already or want specifics (in other words, have an actual conversation--which is why no one ever listens to their stories anymore).

I have known many guys who are too busy documenting an event for Facebook to actually experience it.

I have known guys who lived out of a backpack. I have known guys who claim to be backpacking when the only time they carry the backpack is to the taxi taking him away from the airport (on the way to the taxi to the airport, the hotel porter handles it).

I have known guys who pontificate about human rights and the squalor of developing countries, but are blind to the inequality and poverty on their own doorstep.

I have known ethnocentric guys who claim they're not because they've, "been to 43 countries."

I've known guys who have hiked up the tallest mountain in Taiwan, but were unaware that there are Chinese supermarkets in the U.S.

I have known guys who love being at home because their mom unpack their bags and do their laundry for them, but when they feel cramped, they leave again.

I have known many guys who marry a local girl they met on their travels, even though her English is poor and he never learns her native tongue. Conversely, I have known guys who only want to hook up with white girls when they travel.

I encountered multiple publications who know that artisanal, local handicrafts are the new status symbol. The new height of cool.

I have known guys who confuse instant-gratification with a happy life. Maybe it is, but they have never considered the meaningfulness of their lives.

I have known guys who live to build a persona for themselves through Facebook and twitter and their desktop photos

Traveling is great. Even though we live in a world where we can view satellite maps, documentaries, and other people's Facebook pictures that document life from all over the world, the world itself is still a book, and people who don't travel only read one page. It is a privilege now, as it was when St. Augustine first penned those words, but nothing replaces experiencing things first-hand. So travel, and enjoy talking and interacting with those who travel. But remember not all those who wander have lost their prejudices and pretensions.

Questing and Traveling

Quest (n.): a search or pursuit made in order to find or obtain something: a quest for uranium mines; a quest for knowledge (dictionary.com)

A quest is traditionally a journey, for one seldom gets what one wants by standing still, but nowadays quests take place in one place (usually New York City), whether for a job, for a partner, or for a good public school. The hero doesn't stand still; she (or he) runs around, often in circles. It's a rat race.

Maybe that is unfair. Stories don't only take place in the City Where Nothing Is Ever Good Enough The City that Never Sleeps. Stories can take place wholly in a small town, where the moving is of the souls, usually towards each other, whether in new love or healing old hurt.

Traditional quests though, are about moving and searching and encountering things stranger and greater than seen at home. What is the purpose of questing? What are we searching for when we travel? To see from different perspectives? Perhaps to find a different place, because one never belonged anyway. Either way, you always come back changed.

I am starting to like the quotes on Mindbloom, or at least my collection of them. Among quotes devoted to treating your body like a temple, eating well to live well, and treating the earth respectfully are quotes related to the usefulness of art, imagination, and books. I need more quotes about books. Books are a wonderful way to travel, not only through places and on quests, but through other people's eyes.

A sociology professor at my university once quoted a man who said, "I don't read books. I live them." I don't see why one can't do both. So that is what I am trying to do. I want to live a life worth writing about. I hope it won't be a tragedy, or even a drama. But I do hope it might be a travelogue. My AP Literature teacher confused the hell out of me by asking us (while we were studying Heart of Darkness) what the point of a travelogue was (and then never telling us). I have thought long and hard about what the point is. I still don't have the answer.

Instead, I'll just share a few of my favorite quotes about traveling.

For Perspective and Education
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." – Henry Miller
"Travel far enough, you meet yourself." – David Mitchell

For it's own Sake 
“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.” – Ursula K. Leguin
“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
"To travel is to live." – Hans Christian Anderson

Miscellaneous: For Adventure, Renewal, and to Seek
"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." – Anon
“You lose sight of things… and when you travel, everything balances out.” – Daranna Gidel
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin
 

Why Teach (Private School)?

Why teach at all? Why teach when it takes so much time and pays so little money (even taking into account the two months off)? Why teach when the people you manage are held hostage there, not by income, but by law? Why teach when your students may have little to no respect for you or your profession?

There are some standard answers. To pass on knowledge. To engage intellect. To challenge. To inspire. As if those things were exclusive to teaching.

If you teach at certain public schools, you can say even more. To ensure a basic human right. To mitigate the existence of institutional barriers. To provide a safe and nurturing environment.

But why teach at the private school level? Sure, the money's better, but not that good (it's still teaching). There isn't necessarily a guarantee of a better home environment, though the behavioral issues will be different. A higher standard of intellect is expected, usually (or a higher rate of grade inflation).

Why teach with the knowledge that some students hate your guts, simply because you've done your job?

There are ways to console yourself. You can engage in some form of mudslinging. You can say that you're better than them, and say that they'll get theirs, when they get into college or the real world and can't perform. Unfortunately, poetic justice is just that--poetic. It is symptomatic of literature not because it reflects real life, but real desires. The truth is, a mediocre or failing student of mine will live a more comfortable life than me, simply because he or she was born into a family with more money than mine (just look at George W. Bush).

It's not just the greater opportunity my students were born with that will aid them, it is also their willingness to take what they don't deserve. Despite Aristotle's attempted conflation of goodness and happiness, it just isn't true. Nice guys often do finish last. It seems so unfair that while I am trapped in a cage of my insecurities, my own harshest judge, they are in a bubble sustained by the idea that they can do no wrong.

But happiness is overrated. When I was studying Aristotle in college, I did take issue with happiness being the highest possible good. I tried to think of an alternative, but the best my aspiring intellectual self could come up with was wisdom. I wasn't sure why wisdom should be a higher goal than happiness, but it appealed more to me. It was something I would be willing to suffer for. After all, isn't ignorance bliss? Wasn't I actually toiling through the readings for class while others partied not just so I could get better grades and a better job, but because I wanted to understand the material? (The truth is I enjoyed most of the readings, so it was still about my personal happiness.)

Happiness studies have really flourished. I, too, am suspect to the craze. I want to be happy (or happier, or happy on a more consistent basis). A lot of happiness research was covered by Penelope Trunk, who ultimately decided that happiness lost to being interesting. So maybe I am teaching not because it will lead to a more comfortable, stress-free life, but because it is intellectually stimulating and creatively challenging. That's a good argument. Except that I could get a job that is intellectually stimulating, creatively challenging, pays more, and makes a more perceivable impact.

Emily Esfahani Smith really hit on it.* We don't do things to be happy. We procrastinate to be happy. We go on vacation to be happy. But happiness is not most people's primary motivation. We all want fulfillment, which for most humans means meaning. Meaning for a a large section of the population (I hope) is integrity, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Public school teachers go to work hoping to catch kids, to raise them up. Sometimes all they can be is a stepping stone. Private school teachers go to work to try and prevent kids from being corrupt. Maybe the best we can hope for is to be a stumbling block on their way to asshattery.

*or her source, Roy Baumeister, did