“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
A passport can be a diploma (for a crash course in cultural relativism), The Inner Nightclub of Everlasting Joy. The sex of travel-First you do it for fun, now I seeing the locals, like me, as usual, doing it for money. My personal gold standard for the most attractive example of chaotic urban vitality is Bangkok.
Once you label me you negate me.
Paris is a business class ticket to cool with complimentary mojo on take off, Santorini, Greece a brain dump, New York, a vodka martini served straight up with a twist. The difference between the “tourist” and the “traveler,” is the difference between an alligator and a crocodile, not much. Some times I leave my ASSumptions at home, sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, I’m just a tourist complaining about the people, the food and water, and slow internet connection, or InterNOt-none at all , “Nothing here is the way it is at Starbucks,” When I am a Traveler, I'm pontificating “Everything here is the same as it is in Burma — or Thailand or India.”
The Caribbean, Population 1, or “Here comes everybody.”. At Least I am not hearing invoices---everything is black market wheeler deal Cash. the United States of Unconsciousness verses The “Modern Supermarket” which is a glorified duty free shop and liquor store.
They should be handing out pairs of 3-D glasses for the animation --- Apocalypso Now, Hearts of Darkness, Moods, Masochism, and Mc Murder (Think hamburgers) meets the Titanic-- the ridiculous notion of what “paradise” should look like and who belongs there starts out with a twisty blue waterslides, Bucket-o-Bud bar specials and a poolside “artist” applying airbrush tattoos.
Fear For Sale---Maybe this is what Camus meant when he said that “what gives value to travel is fear” —disruption, in other words, (or emancipation) from circumstance, and all the habits behind which we hide. I traditionally buy things at a store, and not on the beach, but this Caribbean guy is trying to sell me steering wheels. These sons of the beach!
