That's partly why I like traveling, you know. It's a growing experience. A revolution. The world gets thrown on its ear, and without even knowing it you've ridden an elevator up through the clouds and can finally see all 'round. Your own little world looks smaller than it was, and everyone else's problems are thrown into sharp relief, and life seems just a little bit better.
But enough of me talking like I know anything. I just got kicked in the head again. And you-know-who was behind it all. That's right, Paul Theroux has kicked through again.
I was talking to one of my coworkers a few months back. He also happens to be a fan of Theroux, and naturally we discussed his most famous work, The Great Railway Bazaar. Then the talk turned to the book Theroux wrote as a follow-up to that beast of a book: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. My colleague had read it; I hadn't. I came in to work this morning to find the book on my desk, deposited there by my saintly benefactor. Unable to resist temptation, I opened it up and thumbed through the first few pages.
The first thing that greeted my eyes was this:
Most writing about travel takes the form of jumping to conclusions, and so most travel books are superfluous, the thinnest, most transparent monologuing. Little better than a license to bore, travel writing is the lowest form of literary self-indulgence: dishonest complaining, creative mendacity, pointless heroics, and chronic posturing, much of it distorted with Munchausen syndrome.
Well, that was a hell of a thing to crack a book and read. I should have known if I touched anything by Theroux that the old bugger would strike at the heart of the matter and unload a pithy magazine of weaponized wisdom at me. The words were simultaneously enlightening and humiliating. There was no denying that I'd indulged in every one of those cardinal sins in my own travel writing. I realized just how pretentious I've been. Even my mere intention to become a travel writer was the lowest form of conceit. And let's not get started on the prose itself: it dips toward the "mendacious, pointless posturing" end of the spectrum.
After about two minutes of genuine, unfiltered chagrin, I made myself a promise: no more. I'm not going to jump to conclusions. I'm not going to maunder, I'm not going to complain, I'm not going to criticize unduly. Heck, you'll say. You're only 27, kid. This is the time to be a stupid young dreamer with a lot of high-flown ideals based on stuff you've heard and seen and not experienced.
Well, yes. But for that same reason (that I'm 27 years old) I'm starting to get the idea that there's more to life than high-flown ideals and attainable perfection and lasting legacies. Case in point: I had an odd feeling the other day. I had the feeling that my life wasn't infinite, and that I wasn't invincible, and that the mark I'd planned to make on the world might not be as grandiose as I'd envisioned. I started to get an idea of just how fleeting and transient a single human existence (mine especially) really is, and the thought was humbling. I felt like I'd had a moment of real wisdom for the first time in my short life. I've known for a while now that all that posturing that I and others had done in high school hadn't been worth a squat, and hanging out with friends in their lower twenties has long been insufferable. But this was the first time I'd come close to feeling...well, old. It wasn't just the inchoate, vague fear of being old that all young people experience. The thing itself.
Crazy.
Anyway, I'm serious about this. As serious as I've ever been about anything. As serious as anybody who pretends to be wise can be. As serious as any former twenty-something who smoked and drank and partied and passed out in unmentionable places can portray himself to be. No more sanctimonious conclusions. No more unjust, inflammatory complaints. Let's just see what happens to my writing when I try to go for pure, unadulterated description. A little experiment, we'll call it.
I'll have lots to write about, trust me. I solved my dilemma: the final results of the V.D.Q. are in.
Remember the V.D.Q.? The Vacation Destination Quandary? It bedeviled me for the longest time. I couldn't figure out where I was going to go during my two months of vacation. I scratched Malaysia, as the only things you can do there, it seems, are eat delicious food and sprawl out on a beach. Not my cup of tea, not during the height of winter. I scratched Mongolia, too, as the only thing you can do there in the winter is freeze your man-marbles off. With much reluctance, I also scratched Australia, since the $1400 round-trip airline ticket was just too much. I waited too long, dang my hide.
So...Hokkaido it is. I'm making the reservations as I type this. And I had an epiphany in the shower this evening. Instead of taking the old Trans-Siberian Express back through Russia when I'm done in Korea, the way every expatriate under the sun, why don't I take the bull by the horns and go back via Central Asia? Go by train through Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, England, Scotland and Ireland? That's, what—26 countries? The Great Railway Bazaar in reverse, almost.
That would make me feel a lot more like a world traveler.
