Travelling to a poor country offers you a lot: the enriching of your cultural palette, a wealth of treasured memories, a stunning awareness of the diversity of human culture, heaps of photos of you looking awkward next to semi-famous monuments, and, in most of the truly poor countries, the opportunity to get brain-fucked on cheap booze and low-grade hash. Indeed, I can’t think of an easier way to truly expand your horizons than to subject yourself to the cruel realities of an economically undeveloped – that is, shit poor – country.
Which is all well and good, but you can get low-grade hash and an awareness of the diversity of human culture by hanging out near the male toilets at the Kings Cross Hotel. But what you can’t get there is Geography-Generated Self-Importance Enhancement.
Which is all well and good, but you can get low-grade hash and an awareness of the diversity of human culture by hanging out near the male toilets at the Kings Cross Hotel. But what you can’t get there is Geography-Generated Self-Importance Enhancement.
Let me explain. The second you haul your rich, relatively prosperous arse off the plane and stumble blindly into a distant land, you’re a better person. The mere fact that you dedicated a few thousand dollars to travelling overseas - instead of buying expensive shoes, obscure Pitchfork-endorsed albums, a talking robot dog, or all of the above – means that you’re an interesting, exciting person with things to talk about and interesting points for dinner parties.
Yes, as soon as you smell the grotesque stink of Delhi airport, your self-importance rises. The first time you see the beautiful, sweet-smelling rice paddies of Vietnam, you become a better person. When a poorly-groomed man wearing short shorts and a stolen army shirt offers you drugs in Cambodia, you’re officially more interesting than everyone back home… those spoiled, insular, middle-class arseholes who have no idea what the real world is like.
Geography-Generated Self-Importance Enhancement is a funny thing. It’s difficult to admit, but there’s even something oddly ego-boosting about being followed around by a sickly, legless Punjabi man who walks around on his hands begging fatcat tourists for tiny amounts of cash in a language they’ll never understand. It’s a comfort that comes from knowing that, hey, you’ve got two legs and you’re relatively rich and you’ll have another fantastic story to tell your mates over beers when you get back home. It’s the comfort that comes from knowing that you’re not a faceless, nameless, spit upon, starving member of a country with a population of one billion. And so, your self-importance rises. Thanks, poor country!
(Such an experience is also indescribably humbling and sad, but the ego does not often waste time dealing with tragedy. That’s why religious folk who survive massive disasters so often think, secretly, late at night, that there must be a reason they were spared while so many died around them, and that reason is probably because they are incredibly awesome and way better than everyone else and God probably totally has a boner for them).
But I digress. The enhancement of self-importance through travel isn’t a new thing. If Marlow had access to e-mail while sailing up the Congo River, you can beat he’d be sending daily missives to his mates back home. Things are great. I’ve been looking for some creepy Belgian ivory dealer. Saw some pygmies engaged in their savage dancing. It was a sight to behold… absolutely unimaginable. You guys have got to come and check these negroes out. Alexander the Great would get in on it too, if he could have. Yesterday was interesting: I conquered Anatolia and Syria. The Anatolians had fantastic food. I’ve been eating nothing but mutton sandwiches. Got drunk on cheap Persian booze and threw one of my generals in the Nile - hilarious!
But neither Marlow nor Alexander’s mates would read the e-mails. Instead, they’d see these tales for what they are: the continual reaffirmation of one’s own sturdy magnificence and cultural understanding amidst overseas chaos. These e-mails that travellers send – and lord knows I’m guilty of doing it over and over again – offer a small glimpse of a different world, yes, but mostly they tell your friends one thing over and over: I’m doing more interesting things than you and you’re at work reading about the interesting things I’m doing so ha-fucking-ha.
Once you get back home, the self-importance rises every time you spin a yarn about the time you were almost kidnapped by Argentinean bandits or that day when you met the Dalai Lama while eating vegetarian snacks near the Himalayas (or ‘the Himalaya’ as you’d correctly call it if you’d actually been there, like I have, because I’m awesome). You’ll find yourself casually mentioning your amazing travels at every opportunity, no matter how irrelevant or inappropriate that may be; your friend will tell you that their mother has died, and you’ll tell them about the ‘absolutely amazing’ funeral ritual you saw while backpacking in Rwanda in which they cut up the body, burn it on a pyre and then smear the ashes all over their bodies.
So, when you can, go overseas. You’ll be a better person for it. Better than all those fucking unaware, uninteresting swine who’ve never even dreamt of seeing Kilimanjaro rise like Olympus above the Serengeti. Boost your ego. Hop on a plane.
(Originally published at Rouser).
Yes, as soon as you smell the grotesque stink of Delhi airport, your self-importance rises. The first time you see the beautiful, sweet-smelling rice paddies of Vietnam, you become a better person. When a poorly-groomed man wearing short shorts and a stolen army shirt offers you drugs in Cambodia, you’re officially more interesting than everyone back home… those spoiled, insular, middle-class arseholes who have no idea what the real world is like.
Geography-Generated Self-Importance Enhancement is a funny thing. It’s difficult to admit, but there’s even something oddly ego-boosting about being followed around by a sickly, legless Punjabi man who walks around on his hands begging fatcat tourists for tiny amounts of cash in a language they’ll never understand. It’s a comfort that comes from knowing that, hey, you’ve got two legs and you’re relatively rich and you’ll have another fantastic story to tell your mates over beers when you get back home. It’s the comfort that comes from knowing that you’re not a faceless, nameless, spit upon, starving member of a country with a population of one billion. And so, your self-importance rises. Thanks, poor country!
(Such an experience is also indescribably humbling and sad, but the ego does not often waste time dealing with tragedy. That’s why religious folk who survive massive disasters so often think, secretly, late at night, that there must be a reason they were spared while so many died around them, and that reason is probably because they are incredibly awesome and way better than everyone else and God probably totally has a boner for them).
But I digress. The enhancement of self-importance through travel isn’t a new thing. If Marlow had access to e-mail while sailing up the Congo River, you can beat he’d be sending daily missives to his mates back home. Things are great. I’ve been looking for some creepy Belgian ivory dealer. Saw some pygmies engaged in their savage dancing. It was a sight to behold… absolutely unimaginable. You guys have got to come and check these negroes out. Alexander the Great would get in on it too, if he could have. Yesterday was interesting: I conquered Anatolia and Syria. The Anatolians had fantastic food. I’ve been eating nothing but mutton sandwiches. Got drunk on cheap Persian booze and threw one of my generals in the Nile - hilarious!
But neither Marlow nor Alexander’s mates would read the e-mails. Instead, they’d see these tales for what they are: the continual reaffirmation of one’s own sturdy magnificence and cultural understanding amidst overseas chaos. These e-mails that travellers send – and lord knows I’m guilty of doing it over and over again – offer a small glimpse of a different world, yes, but mostly they tell your friends one thing over and over: I’m doing more interesting things than you and you’re at work reading about the interesting things I’m doing so ha-fucking-ha.
Once you get back home, the self-importance rises every time you spin a yarn about the time you were almost kidnapped by Argentinean bandits or that day when you met the Dalai Lama while eating vegetarian snacks near the Himalayas (or ‘the Himalaya’ as you’d correctly call it if you’d actually been there, like I have, because I’m awesome). You’ll find yourself casually mentioning your amazing travels at every opportunity, no matter how irrelevant or inappropriate that may be; your friend will tell you that their mother has died, and you’ll tell them about the ‘absolutely amazing’ funeral ritual you saw while backpacking in Rwanda in which they cut up the body, burn it on a pyre and then smear the ashes all over their bodies.
So, when you can, go overseas. You’ll be a better person for it. Better than all those fucking unaware, uninteresting swine who’ve never even dreamt of seeing Kilimanjaro rise like Olympus above the Serengeti. Boost your ego. Hop on a plane.
(Originally published at Rouser).
No comments:
Post a Comment