A Bowl of Stupid

It was just what I needed, actully.

It happened as our truck crawled along the muddy hillside roads outside Chiang Mai, Thailand, as we were being driven up to the dropoff point for today's whitewater rafting trip.

I had a bit of an epiohiny.

Yes, another one, you fuckers.

As background, towards the end of my trip back to the States, I was finding myself again growing extremely bitter in my views towards Westerns (and Americans, in particular) for a variety of reasons - none of which are all that important at the end of the day.

However, the trip back to the States has also led me to consider various aspects of my place in the overall dynamic of global living in the 2st Century. Living in the States is, at the end of the day, not all that different than living abroad.

It's all a matter of keeping — or, in my case, obtaining — perspective.

I realised this today, as I was looking out at the fairly unadulterated tropical landscape full of banana trees, bamboo trees, palms, teak trees, and all variety of crawling vines and bushes — all one would expect from the back-country of Southeast Asia.

I'll try to explain, but I'm not quite sure I can.

When I first arrived in Chiang Mai, my tuk-tuk (taxi) driver assumed by my demeanor that I'd been here before. I think it's cuz I've lost any sense of 'bewilderment' I first had after leaving the States. You see it on the faces of all the mealy, pasty white, backpackers wherever you go … I mean EVERYWHERE.

In relation to living (or returning) to a metropolis like New York, or Philly, I called this getting my 'city legs." (KB calls it the 'Amish boy' factor).

However, that being said … although I've been doing for years and I'm getting quite good at it, I'm tired of playing the pissed-off American know-it-all, claiming that Americans who continue to toil as Joe Banks are doomed to a miserable existence.

I'm also tired of playing the flip-side of that coin, the know-it-all American 'ex-pat' who thinks he's an expert in all things living abroad, and about being a well-healed traveler.

Before I left back for Boston, I think I was viewing my trips abroad — to Costa Rica, Indonesia, Cambodia … wherever — not as a means to discover new places, but only new places to say I've been. The net effect of doing so was to put myself above all the other 'lessor-healed' travelers, but not see them — or myself — in the general equation.

I've been lamenting about the large number of Westerners in these Asian countries the same way I did about all the tourists to Miami Beach when I lived there. However, what can I really expect by going to places that are geared towards tourists?

It's essentially akin to getting pissed-off about having to sit through a Broadway musical after making a special trip to the theatre.

These places exist. They are what they are. As are the people there.

Cie la vie.

You must (or at least, I'm trying to) take these places - and the things and people they each have to offer - for what they are.

Acceptance.

I really shouldn't get mad because there are more tourists circulating through a town in the hills of northeastern Thailand than you'd ever have expected.

And I shouldn't be disturbed by watching Americans sitting atop trained elephants (whom several I saw faintly resemble) in the middle of the jungle just for the snapshot value.

And it's okay that there are developed railways, and freeways, and sprawling metropolises in places you 'thought' had only recently been blessed with the marvel of indoor plumbing.

These things are the way they are. And they'll be that way after I leave. Whether it be Chiang Mai, or Bangkok, or Costa Rica … or Miami and elsewhere in the States.

Each of these places have things to offer. They don't have to be what you've always envisioned them being.

And I really, really, REALLY, must stop trying to impose my views of perfection on them.

The best I can really hope is to try to take as much as possible from whatever 'beneficial uniqueness' remains in the places I'm visiting. By continuing on the path of 'hoping' these places will be as I WANT them to be, I'll simple continue contributing to the problem.

All that being said, however, I still think I reserve the right to get ridiculously exasperated about seeing a group of 20-something Euro-trash girls in some shithole backpacker ghetto-bar all dolled up like they're spending the night out at Crobar.

C'mon, get a fucking grip, you guys. I mean … really.

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