Feature photo by Hazel Motes.
Certain travel lessons can be gleaned from the philosophy of Tyler Durden.
Most of us have seen the movie Fight Club. When it hit theaters in 1999 with an unbelievably carved Brad Pitt and ingeniously beleaguered Ed Norton, author Chuck Palahniuk found himself with a giant, rabid, new fan base dedicated to Tyler Durden and his philosophy.
Avowing anti-consumerist ideas and an explosive refusal of passive acceptance, Durden led the other characters into a violent awakening and encouraged audiences’ vicarious participation.
Whether leaving the theater or flipping the last page of the book, viewers and readers alike were left with the stinging thematic message: “This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
For travelers, this message has been the underlying pulse humming in the background of every flight, ticket, hostel, and trek.
Subtle, but never forgotten, the drive to make the most out of life is the communal thread linking backpackers, flashpackers, travelers, and adventure-seekers alike.
Ten years later, Tyler Durden’s philosophy still has a lot to teach us about travel:
“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
Photo by Marko Bucik.
This is less about wiping our slates clean of all accomplishments, relationships, or manufactured goods, and more about cutting free from the obsessive attachment supported and fed by modern consumerist and business culture.
When we board that plane or get that visa stamped, we are instantly reminded that we are fundamentally free beings. We are free to go where we want and do what we want. Our car payments do not dictate our life choices.
Travel shows us that we’re free to do anything. We can stomp grapes in Italy, surf in Costa Rica, or fire dance in Thailand. We just need to make that choice. Freedom is inherent in travel and imperative in Fight Club.
“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. . . You’re not your fucking khakis.”
In the shuffle of seductive television ads, competitive social comparisons, and overbearing societal barometers telling us just how far in life we should be, we tend to misplace our own identities.
We measure our feelings of self worth on how shiny and new the plastic of our recent purchase is. We define ourselves by the brands we wear or don’t wear. We allow automated computer programs to categorize our likes and dislikes for us.
Travel reminds us who we are and what we aren’t. We aren’t jobs, currency, automobiles, or textiles. And that’s never more clear than when drifting down the river in a bamboo raft on a sunny day. We’re never more in touch with our identity than when we’re navigating the streets of a new city whose language we can’t understand, using a map we can’t read.
We can be nothing but ourselves when we travel. And we should always remember that.
“People do it everyday, they talk to themselves… they see themselves as they’d like to be, they don’t have the courage you have, to just run with it.”
Travel takes courage and teaches us courage. Many are afraid to step outside their comfort zones and be without an anchor in the familiar.
As travelers, our bravery is continually challenged. Whether it is packing up all our belongings to move to another country or joining in a cliff diving session during a summer trip, travel is relentlessly asking more of us and testing what we’re made of.
But once we’re there, flying over borders or off the cliff’s edge, the rewards are immense. We are no longer seeing ourselves as we’d like to be; we are becoming the people we’d like to be. And that feeling is incomparable.
“I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say… let’s evolve, let the chips fall where they may.”
Every new trip breeds new understanding. We see new landscapes, meet different people, gather new experiences. Travel helps us further along our intellectual, psychological, and emotional evolution.
Travel reminds us that life isn’t a series of boxes to be checked off or a succession of requisite motions. We are alive to be alive, learning growing and along the way. Everything else is minutiae.
Stop being perfect. It is more important to be evolved.
As with travel, Fight Club warns us to never lose sight of the essential. It’s easy to get hustled along on a guided path, but much more satisfying to forge your own way. As travelers, we need to keep in mind these reasons and our goals for why we travel.
And always remember, “This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
COMMUNITY CONNECTION:
For a list of other movies that have changed travelers’ lives, check out “The Red Pill: 10 Films Guaranteed to Blow Your Mind.”
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83 Comments... join the discussion!
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Very well written! Thanks Juli!
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Thanks Erik
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i am jack's full passport
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Well written, and well observed.
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“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. . . ”
YES! That sums up my perspective on life
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Weird timing; I just happened to watch Fight Club again for the 47th time today…
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Any particular reason why? Not that Fight Club isn't a movie worth watching repeatedly
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Didn't feel like reading…
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haha nice.
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Thank you for a very inspiring well thought out post.
Makes me look forward to my next adventure!
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How many travellers actually observe any of Chucks rules though? i say End countless yankie doodles paying their way and ACTUALLY TRAVEL , none of this Fucking: " well its ONLY 5 dollars for a Hotel" Bullshit & ACTUALLY go TRAVELLING, eg: sleeping it rough anywhere, NOT bringing yer Fuckin Cred card with you & not ignoring the local.. Most "Travellers" i have met don't know what it means to walk a mile on ones feet and its a Damn Crying Shame. I think most of the worls needs to wake up & not just go about saying " i've DONE Asia","i've DONE Ireland" ,How can You call somewhere DONE , Ya don't know Fuck about it, you didnt speak to a single local while there, Wake Up.
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Agreed. I only talk to natives, and when I do it's not in English. English is for pansies! I refuse to sleep in any form of dwelling whatsoever, and if the ground doesn't look miserable enough I throw out some roofing nails to be sure.
I had a traveling buddy who suggested he knew an authentic Bangladeshi outhouse we could stay for free in, and I was so disgusted with him I immediately dumped gas down my pants and lit a match.
Goddamn limp-wristed materialists! May they rot in hell with their cell phones and Ipods. I would never call a place "done," unless I've spent a minimum of five years there wearing only a thong. One must have standards.
Punks.
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LOL! oh maaan haha
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hahahaha
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nice. props to that response.
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Actually, the first one of these about loosing yourself is ripped off from deliverance by James Dickey. I don't know about the others.
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Hmmm I don't think Palahniuk was quoting Dickey… Dickey's quote was "Sometimes you have to lose yourself 'fore you can find anything."
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I'm sitting here in Istanbul, 7 months in to an around the world trip, and this was a great and re-invigorating read! Well written. Thanks!
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Wow 7 months huh? That sounds incredible! Thanks for the compliments!
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I want to see more articles from Juli!
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When I first saw Fight Club, I thought he said "You're not your fucking car keys". I still think this is a better quote than khakis.
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when i was 18, i back packed everywhere, slept anywhere…and with just about anyone….it was fun, total irresponsible….i enjoyed it, then there was a trip through turkey during the iran iraq war, the refugees were travelling, but they cool not find shelter or food…..i left.
great, if you have money, lack any sense of responsibility and basically have an antisocial personality or all out sociopath…then free spirited travel is for you.
otherwise, i prefer to travel to help out where i can, doing volunteering…or restful travel.
so tired of the boring drunk rich kids that travel through while overseas…..i mean the locals need the money and the americans/germans/aussies/swedes think they see and feel something….but its basic bullshit.
how many people have you watched die painfully for lack of money? i have seen plenty
this amounts to sheer arrogance or the wealth elite………
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"All out sociopath?" Don't you think that's just a wee bit of an exaggeration? If every person reading articles on this website were an all out sociopath that'd be a frightening situation, indeed. Also, I'd like to know the difference between the "restful travel" and volunteering you do and the "free spirited travel" you attribute to sociopaths.
As for "drunk rich kids," I have worked for every travel experience I have ever had. Most of the time, I have taken jobs overseas and worked in a wide variety of places to be able to travel. My closest friends, who have not lived in the U.S for years, have supported themselves entirely since leaving home at eighteen, and have never traveled as "drunk rich kids" on their parents' money. Every one of them works for the ability to travel.
Also, since when did watching people "die painfully for lack of money" constitute understanding? Is everything one sees or feels bullshit unless it involves watching others die? There are plenty of people who may never have watched a person die who can empathize and feel the need to help alleviate human suffering. Thankfully, humans are intelligent beings with an incredible capacity for empathy that allows them to feel and relate to other people even if they have not experienced or witnessed exactly the same things others have.
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Frankly, I'd be careful who I was condemning as "arrogant" while flashing my Witness to Real Human Suffering credentials around. I'm not sure how much more compassionate the experience of pain and death could have made you if you treat it like a gold star on your travel resume.
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Bravo, Sandals, you said it much better than me with about 1/18th of the words.
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true dat. well said, sandals.
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I loved Fight Club the first time I saw it. Now, after watching it five or six times, I have trouble getting past the irony of Brad Pitt playing an anti-consumerist anarcho-terrorist. Case in point, the scene where Him of the Shredded Abs scoffs at the male model in the underwear ad on the bus: "Is that what a real man looks like?" — a few minutes before flaunting his own unnatural Hollywood-engineered physique. Makes me scratch my head a bit.
Still: Tyler's voice pops into my head pretty frequently, especially while I was serving my 6-month stint as a Starbucks barista and wishing I was eating rice and beans on the side of the road somewhere far away.
Very cool article : )
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Thanks Sandals
I know exactly what you mean, but I also think it was great casting on the director's part. Brad Pitt plays an imaginary character – one that Norton's character dreams up in response to his latent dissatisfaction with his own life/self. What's truly ironic is that Pitt's character's criticism of ads touting unrealistic body images endears him more to us as an everyman when in reality he himself is all shredded abs and a fantasy. Essentially he's criticizing himself and yet we like him more for it and hate the underwear model. And what does that say about Tyler and his susceptibility to advertising's ideal body images? He scoffs at it, but still desires to look like that. We try and buck "the system" but how much can we truly get away with and how much has seeped into our subconscious? Man, I could go on. Thanks for the comment! I love discussing Palahniuk as I think he wrestles with some very interesting ideas.
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All very true. You could even approach it from the perspective that Tyler as a character isn't even concerned with cultivating an ideal body image — since, as he says, "Fight Club became the reason to cut your hair short and trim your fingernails": That could just be what you end up looking like when you spend enough time beating the christ out of people in a dark basement on a regular basis. Maybe I'll try to incorporate that into my next work-out plan. Or, since Tyler's a mental construct, what you *feel* like you look after street fighting on the weekends… the layers! Where does it end!
Seriously though, I don't want to take the spotlight too much off the point of your article, which was excellent. That quote, "I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect… let the chips fall where they may" comes to mind a lot when trying to plan trips on a financially-handicapped college student budget.
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tell a young mother in Dafur that she should start travelling to enrich her life…..her children are dead anyway……..this dicussion, while interesting…..is geared for the wealthy elite……great, if that is you, but for most of the worlds population, it is unrealistic…..and a little insulting…..like, let them eat cake.
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Look, Tim:
I think there are very few people on this site who don't appreciate that the ability to travel is an immense privilege. Likewise, I don't think anybody doubts that there are a lot of overprivileged, irresponsible rich kids who fly around the world to resorts and hotels, completely oblivious to anything approximating local culture — the one's who *don't* appreciate what an immense gift travel is. I don't suspect you'll find many of those people here. Yes, we're privileged, and yes, many of us probably travel for travel's sake, not just to Mother-Teresa our way around some destitute third-world country, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Still, I get the sense that a lot of the people who frequent this site travel mindfully, with the intention of sharing a cultural experience with people abroad and bringing what they've learned back home. That does have value and should be encouraged. So, essentially, as well-intentioned as you might be, you're preaching to the choir — and coming off as a bit of a self-righteous asshole in the process.↵ -
Oh, I don't know, I think a reminder never hurts – and *cough* he managed to make his point without calling anyone any names.
In truth, phrases like "anyone can travel" do get bandied around a lot in this community. And, sadly, that simply isn't the case.
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With respect: What was his point? Perhaps I misunderstood, but the point I got was "I've seen people die, I travel for volunteer work, therefore I'm a more informed and compassionate traveler than the people for whom this post was written, i.e. all of you" — at best, a generic gripe about overprivileged trustafarians, with no clear, specific relevance to the post. Judging from the replies he got on his original comment, I don't think I'm entirely alone in that assessment.
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Ah, didn't see his first comment. I really didn't find the second one particularly objectionable, and that's what I was responding to.
"I think there are very few people on this site who don't appreciate that the ability to travel is an immense privilege."
I wish that was true, and I'm glad you're one of the ones who *does* get how lucky we are. There are plenty of people in these parts who spend their time feeling superior to those who can't/don't travel and/or can't/don't travel the "right" way. As I said, I think a reminder to those folks now and then doesn't hurt — although perhaps a less obnoxiously-phrased one than the one we're discussing.
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Hey Eva,
I think you're totally right about the fact that many people not only take the ability to travel for granted, but see it as some sort of moral decision that anyone could make if he/she wanted to. This article is a case in point–it's a great article and it's an interesting interpretation of "Fight Club" in a travel context, but it definitely shows how travel, and the form of travel advocated most often on Matador, is a response to upper-middle class, predominantly white, predominantly Western consumer culture.
For example: "In the shuffle of seductive television ads, competitive social comparisons, and overbearing societal barometers telling us just how far in life we should be"
All of the things listed above, as well as the urge to define oneself through one's khakis, are indicators of a particular culture: consumer capitalist culture, and more specifically, upper-middle class consumer capitalist culture. The social pressures that tell one to buy more clothes, to consume more, to buy a car and a house and go to a good university, are characteristic of a particular class, and the response to these social pressures–traveling–is also characteristic of a particular class. To even enter into this debate, one more or less has to be a part of that class, or to be familiar with its value systems.
I definitely take offense at Tim's characterization of travelers as "boring, drunk rich kids," and more ludicrously, "sociopaths," and I think his assumption that anyone living a comfortable life cannot possibly understand poverty is ridiculous, but I agree that people often go on lofty rants here about the necessity of travel without taking into account the fact that they have to be quite privileged to be able to travel.
Also, last thing, and then I'll go, I promise! Travel, unless one wins some sort of contest, is rarely, if ever, free. It always irritates me when I see people saying that travel can cost almost nothing–actually, travel costs a lot, whether one pays for it by working in a wealthy country and saving, or by asking for money from one's parents, or by working abroad.
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Hear hear! Well spoken.
Group hug?
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I don't know how any of you could waste time discussing this topic, when there are millions of children around the world starving at this moment. How do you sleep at night?
Sociopathic punks.
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Definitely group hug time.
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Really good points here, Sarah, as always. One quick observation – you refer to the "upper-middle class". I remember a class at college, when a student referred to himself as "upper-middle class" and the professor, a Persian woman who had fled Iran in the early '80s, put her foot down.
"Enough with this upper-middle class stuff!" she said. "You mean upper class. No one talks about the upper class in America – it's as if the middle class is so big it encompasses everyone except Bill Gates."
I think she's right. It's an interesting point – do we ever refer to the "upper class" in America, without the middle modifier? Hardly ever…it's as if it's embarrassing…
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For me, the difference between upper-middle and middle class is the difference between, say, private high schools and Ivy League and public schools and a state university education, to give one example. And the difference between parents who whisk their kids to Paris or Barbados for vacation and parents who take their kids to Michigan. I guess you're right–the former would be upper class, not upper-middle class. I've just had this idea that upper class is like some exclusive category reserved for CEO's, but your point is interesting. I wonder if you think upper-middle class, or upper class people, share the same values as the middle class? Or do you think there are important distinctions here?
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I think Sarah's just pretty well defined how I view the different between upper middle-class and middle class, too. But I do think upper class is something else – a smaller, seriously elite group. Like, old money, big money, Gossip Girl-type money. (Pardon the shallow pop culture reference.) The class system has (or used to have, anyway) as much to do with your family and background as your education, income level and profession — that's why I still consider most "upper middle-class" types to be middle class, because they're not usually from an upper class background.
(Of course, by that definition, Bill Gates — as a self-made entrepreneurial type — isn't necessarily upper class. So obviously it's problematic.)
For me:
Caroline Kennedy = upper class
Descendants of the Astors = upper class
etc.Yep, it's a smaller group, but hey, the class system is a pyramid, right? (Or, again, used to be. But these days it seems our middle class has inflated — I'd say a lot of our "lower class" needs are filled by people in other countries…)
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True – lower class needs are often filled by people from other countries – which is interesting. The "middle" class in N. America is certainly part of the global "upper" class, right?
My favorite class in school was P.E.
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The student in question was probably talking about ideas from Paul Fussell's book "Class," in which each of the traditional three economic classes are split into three subgroups, a total of nine. If I were to interpret "upper middle class," it means you don't worry about paying off your house, but you can't quite afford Brad Pitt's.
But all that is really academic, because travel isn't about money. All of you know this, including tim. I suppose that saying I like to walk to the end of the block once a day makes me an elitist, taking into account all those people who aren't able to walk. Where oh where do I sign up to hate my own guts? Spare me.
This is not only a false dilemma, it's an exercise in pandering. Don't get suckered into it.
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You're right, travel isn't about money. That's what this article is all about–travel is often about getting away from the consumer-capitalist quest for/obsession with money. But, money is necessary to travel. Not a lot of it, not a love of it, but yes, if you want to go backpacking across Southeast Asia, you need the money to get yourself a plane, train, or bus ticket, to sleep, eat, etc…I'm not sure what you mean by hating your own guts or pandering…I don't think I'm doing either. I don't hate myself or most other people who travel; in fact, I tend to get along really well with other travelers and for just that reason I participate in this community.
However, I do recognize the fact that in order to travel I need money. I earn it by working in the U.S, or teaching English abroad. Not everyone who travels is a "pampered gadabout" as you say, but the majority of people who travel and who read Matador articles and participate in the site do belong to a particular class, which I would argue is the middle/upper-middle class. I'm not sure how worthwhile meticulous distinctions between those classes are, but I do think it's important to dispel this myth that no one needs money to travel. Yes, people do need money to travel, actually, and I think stating that travel is free is a rather insulting and vapid statement coming from people who take their privilege for granted.
Saying travel requires money does not mean hating anyone of a certain class or accusing anyone of being elitist. It does not mean, either, that travels requires an obsession with money or lavish amounts of it. But it is a basic requirement, and one that people of a certain class tend to meet.
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Er, not you, Sarah. You're just fine. I'm all the way back at tim's original argument. Sorry…
Money's important, but it's not the root of all travel. I think we're agreed there. So… sorry again.
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Sorry, DH! Can you tell I have a little trigger button where the travel/money topic is concerned? You just stumbled on it and unintentionally won yourself a first-class full-on mega-rant. I just feel like I come across these two back to back assumptions a lot: that travel doesn't require money, and that anyone and everyone could/should travel. And I think both are flawed. So anyway, your comment wandered into that hot zone and allowed me to get some rantin' outta my system. I think I read another comment of yours somewhere about the problem with the internet being the inability to buy a person a beer. I think that is definitely true with this situation. A round of Bell's Two-Hearted would do the trick.
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You don't like my "How To Travel The World For Free" article very much, do you Sarah. I think it's true, though, that by traveling slowly, close to the ground, and taking advantage of opportunities that arise, one can travel the world for a lot less money than it takes to sustain a middle class lifestyle….then again, I don't have health insurance….
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Sorry, Tim, if it seems like I'm always attacking that one! I think you make some really good points there, and I think you're right that travel can cost so much less than people think. And yes, travel can definitely cost much much less than a middle class lifestyle, and one thing I feel traveling has taught me is that I really do not need many things. Sometimes when I go back to the U.S I am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff people have, and keep accumulating, and I try, even when I'm in one place for awhile, to avoid the Accumulation of Stuff.
P.S–I do not have health insurance either, and this scares the living daylights out of me when I go back to the U.S.
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Let me get this straight: Maoris on walkabout, Marco Polo, Che Guevara, pilgrims and seekers throughout the ages, et. al. – they're all de facto "wealthy elite?" Gotcha. And, therefore, everyone who hits the road today is a pampered gadabout, right?
All this coming from a guy who spend his time reproaching people for being privileged… via computer.
This is just a backwards equation of money = happiness. Saying you need money to travel is like saying you need money to live a happy life, and that's absurd. It's the whole idea of the article above.
(BTW – Durden ultimately goes too far by forcing a transformative experience on the unwilling, but much of his philosophy is sound in moderation.)
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WOW Julliane..im 19 and almost all of my friends are in school..and im saving money so i can travel around australia for a nice while and for the past 2 years while i was in israel..my understanding of traveling got deeper and clearer..still going haha…and what u've written perfectly describes how traveling can u make jump out of all the boxes ur in so u can see urself in ur pure reality…..great article
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Thanks rastamon!
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Ed Norton's character blow his head off in the end? And wasn't it all in his head, i.e., the whole weird trip was just an examination of one guy's mental illness? What's so desirable about that?
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You speak as if mental illness were a BAD thing…
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You speak as if mental illness were a BAD thing.
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While I agree with you on a lotta points here, I gotta say, I don't think the way I talk about travel in the article is "a response to upper-middle class, predominantly white, predominantly Western consumer culture." Advertising is pervasive. Consuming is human nature. I think it's a little ethnocentric to just confine these characteristics to America as many different countries and cultures feel these same pressures.
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You have an interesting point here, Juliane. I have to disagree about consumption. I don't think consuming, particularly the way it's interpreted in Fight Club and this article, is human nature at all. It's a result of a particular economic system that commercializes every aspect of everyday life, and encourages people to define themselves by cars and khakis. Perhaps purchasing rice at the market could also be defined as consumption of goods, but this is not the kind of consumption that's being dealt with in the article.
I do think that this article is directed at a specific group of people who are responding to a specific economic system and culture, and the article demonstrates travel as a reaction to that system and culture. However, I think you make a good point that that particular system/culture is not restricted to the U.S. You can find it in the middle and upper classes in countries that have embraced capitalist values–you can find it in the Chinese middle and upper classes in the cities, for example, and also in the Mexican middle class (speaking from personal observation.) But I do not think that the pressure is of the same scale, or is as ubiquitous, as it is in the U.S. In the U.S, from the fifties onwards, the entire culture has been directed towards commodifying and consuming every last value and experience. Consumer capitalism has not yet dominated every aspect of other countries in the same way.
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You're definitely on about American consumerism but I would argue that it's just as fierce, if not more so, in Japanese modern culture. America has yet to see the same high suicide percentages from citizens buckling under the pressure. Yes the article is tailored to a specific audience – an audience that finds fatigue and disillusionment with consumer culture. I think that while Palahniuk may have drawn inspiration from American culture, his message isn't confined to only Americans.
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You're right, the message isn't just for Americans. I think modern Japanese culture is even more intense than American because there is so much pressure to conform…although I haven't been to Japan so don't take my word on that. The Japan I know is almost exclusively through Haruki Murakami…
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Wow you leave the computer for a weekend and come back to find a whole lotta interesting thoughts. THIS is why I heart Matador!
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This is a terrific post! I am learning the "art of detachment." You are correct when you say that we are not our jobs, automobiles, and clothes. Yes, we are free. Unfortunately most of us are swept away by the outside world and keeping up with it. For the past 1 1/2 years, I've been working on cleaning up my "inner self." I have learned that I do not care what others think and that I do have courage. I moved over 2,000 miles away from my home; no family or friends to accompany me. I also traveled by myself for the first time…It was very liberating…I'm ready for more travel this year…
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Wow, props to you Rebecca. Taking actions like those is definitely not easy.
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Re Ms. Menkedick's posts: I'm definitely down with your points. In my early twenties–approximately three centuries ago–I set out from Vermont one bright autumn afternoon with a close friend I had worked the entire summer with at a well-known resort. We had his yellow 1978 Toyota Corolla, a suitcase each, three cameras, about $1000 apiece, and an address in Houston of two friends we could stay with. Plan? Not so much. After being run off the highway in a blizzard in Shippensburg, PA, and nearly aborting the whole idea, then spending an entire afternoon riding around eastern PA the next day looking for points and plugs on a Sunday, we finally drove out of our cloud of bad luck and stopped to visit a friend of his in South Carolina for about a week. Then we just drove. I ended up seeing large parts of 22 states that year, took thousands of photographs, met my first wife and learned why the Grand Canyon is called that, for starters. Since then, I've traveled across the country seven times in all with nothing more than a suitcase. I've been to every state but North Dakota, much of eastern Canada, and even as far south as Saltillo, a small city about two hours south of Monterey, Mexico. I stopped and worked when I needed money, made a gazillion friends I could still stay with if I needed to, and actually "settled down"–which for me meant staying in one place for longer than 9 months–in fifteen different states. At last count I had lived in 60 different homes. Now I'm in Alaska. Point is, you really can just pick up and go, once you get the notion you can't out of your head. Yes, it takes money and a few creature comforts, but even in this maladjusted culture not as much as one might think–even today. I miss it.
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It's all true. I sold or gave away all my possesions in exchange for a life of travel, and now I am completely free of any obligations or attatchments. And I am much happier than I have ever been.
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Great Article. Fight club is my favorite movie, and probably my main inspiration for letting go of everything and moving to China.
I have to agree with Juliane on the point that this article and the ideas behind fight club are not confined to any particular class or society. I am formerly of the lower class in the US (moving to China instantly put me in the middle class)- I've never had enough money for a car and always thought that travel would happen when I struck it rich. Now I realize that it's not, as long as you don't do it the commercial way, and not having a car has allowed me so much more freedom (such as no car payments to worry about when I move across the world). If anything it's the lower class that is hit hardest by the pressures of society – they want things in the ads, but most will never get them. Work a shitty job to buy shit you don't need – this is definitely not just describing the upper class.
China could use a Chinese version of Fight Club. Chinese society is heavily materialistic – hell for Chinese New Year the most important spirit is the spirit of wealth. They say "congatulations on getting rich" for "happy new year". This is how society has always been and it puts a ridiculous burden on people here to have money in their bank accounts, buy nice khakis, and show off their ipods.
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Yours is a great story, and I believe every word of it. I also believe it is possible to, as you say, "pick up and go." However, it's a lot more complex than people depict it as being, and I do not think that everyone could, would, or should (sorry for the awful rhyming) follow in your footsteps. Eva made a wonderful point about connections people have that are much deeper and much less transparent than some sort of attachment to consumerism. People have connections to family, to particular places, and to career–and "career" does not have to be synonymous with 9-5 monotony or superficiality. However, if someone wants to, say, be an academic, or a lawyer (they aren't all bad!) or an activist or a hundred other things, being somewhat rooted in a particular place is important. Not all the time, no, but for at least periods at a time. And people are attached to, and have commitments to, their families, and even to particular places they love. If one wants to start a family and have children, I'm not sure how practical, or enjoyable, it is to be taking off at any particular moment and trying to find random work around the country. Similarly if one wants to be near parents or to help siblings raise children or whatnot. All of these circumstances–career and family and the love of a particular community–make it much harder to simply hit the road and make it up as one goes along. They necessitate planning a little further ahead, and saving money to travel.
Add to that that many people do not want to live their entire lives traveling and making it up entirely as they go along. I don't. I love the way travel makes me feel and think, but I also love coming "home," whether that home is in Beijing or Oaxaca or Columbus, Ohio, after a long trip. I do not want to walk out the door and spend the next five years trying to scrape by crashing on couches and working in diners and making things up as I go along. This is not because I need to stay in luxury hotels or sip coconut cocktails on the beach, but rather because I want to be able to plan and move forward step by step in my life. That is, I want to go back to school, I want to continue working on my writing, etc–and I need a certain stability, and the ability to look a few months (if not a year) ahead to be able to do this. I also love being connected to a particular community, as I am here in Oaxaca, and as I was in China and La Reunion. And that necessitates staying put longer, and doing more careful planning to fit travel in.
Finally, back to my original point–as an American, this is infinitely easier. Perhaps it is easier as well if one is a middle-upper class person from any society with the freedom to travel without too much concern for money. But for example, none of my Chinese students would have been able to hop in a car and start driving round the country, traveling, and finding random work. I highly doubt many people I know here in Mexico could, either. A, because there's not enough work, and B, because it pays so little that many people have to live with their families (unless they've gotten a higher education and are employed in more lucrative positions as architects, lawyers, professionals, etc.) into their thirties or later.
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Whew, that was long! Sorry!
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brilliant…
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I used to subscribe to this Fight Club way of thinking, but since then I've had to move out of my parents house and get a job and I've realized that you pretty much are your money and you are your job.
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So – if you define yourself by the things you need, were you your parents' house prior to moving out?
If you compare the two cases, you can boil it down into "I am my sheltered outlook," and you might be making some progress here. Best of luck to you!
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Except for foot or bicycle travel, most traveling is wasteful and selfish as it contributes to greenhouse gases being poured into the atmosphere just so you can see some other place, you selfish bastards. I feel that unless you are using pretty much no fossil fuels (I am not against nomadic lifestyle, just burning carbon to get there), you are not really making the world a better place to be. I also feel that it is a spiritual ideal to be able to be content wherever one is, and not look outside oneself for a constant source of entertainment in the form of traveling or whatever, although I understand human nature is curious. I would just like people to start to think locally, and think twice before traveling. Do you really need to travel? We do it for our cars, to cut down reliance. I think it is incredibly wasteful just to travel for your own self-interest.
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Can I have your plane ticket?
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This was beautifully written and so everything that I believe about travel and the beauty of the vulnerability of being in an explored place. This connection with the ideas in Fight Club is something I wouldn't have expected, but I LOVE it. I'll be printing this out and keeping it near my bedside. This is something great to read and re-read to remind myself how I want to live.
Thank you for this, it was great!
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Thanks Andrea
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Stop consuming travel!
According to a great sufi writer traditionally there are two reason to travel :
1 war
2 pilgrimage
Tourism is the first one, usually. Consuming, getting everything out of the situation, eating up excitement, the locals, the place. That's not freedom, just an other way of consuming. Don't fool yourself
You can be a pilgrim still. Be a witness. Be friends with the locals. Be their guest, and act like you are equal with them. Imagine, would you do the same, if they come to visit you?
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that was a great post!!
thank you very much juliane, it really move something inside, makes me think a lot all what you just said
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Jesus Christ, where to start? Did anybody watch Fight Club? If you did, then don’t be surprised when Tyler smacks you in the back of the head or punches you in the gut. Whoever wrote this article just found some mediocre at best excuse to tie-in some Fight Club references to something Tyler would never do… Travel. Did you all forget that Tyler is a sociopath and the Narrator says something like”I wanted smother those French beaches I’ve never been in with oil” and “I wanted to destroy something beautiful”. On top of that, do you really think you need to fucking travel to find fulfillness in your life? If you scaled Mt. Everest crawling for all I care, do you think you’ll just come back home a completely redefined person? No! Your just gonna go back to your 9-5 or salary job amd quickly burn away the little bit of life you have left. Traveling to different parts of the world isn’t going to make your life any better either. All traveling is is something society wants you to think is crucial to your happiness so you could turn the big hamster wheel that is the economy. If your wealthy, good for you. Go on and whisk away your life doing something you think is vital to your being. I say, Fuck off with your travelocity tickets, Hilton hotel suites, and Enterprise rent-a-car. Just flame me at jjimenez1230@yahoo.com because if you even bother ranting on me on this website, 100% chance I’ll never read it. But don’t let that stop you from getting the satisfaction of looking so ballsy on front of all these courteous strangers…
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ROFL–well mocked, Sir. Well mocked.
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Nice piece; glad it is in the year end wrap up ’cause I missed it when it came out. Its inspiring and also a little saddening, because right now, “This is my life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
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Awesome. A perspective on life that I can really relate to.
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@Sarah: I'm gonna stick my neck out and take issue with your position
I think when you refer to "travel" you're limiting your argument to a particular kind of traveling — the kind that most of us are used to. Planes cost money, hostels cost money, restaurants cost money — but getting from Point A to Point B? Totally free. I could walk out to the highway right now with the clothes on my back and the money in my pocket (all of $3, sadly), hitch a ride, and be halfway down the coast by Wednesday. I could work for food. I could probably even find a way to get across the ocean for free. Is traveling like that *practical* for most people? No way. Is it *possible*? Absolutely.
I think the point of all those "Travel For Nothing" articles — or at least what I take away from them — is giving people a different way to think about traveling (although I'll admit that I haven't had a chance to read Tim's article yet.) Not to say that people should travel for nothing, or that it's easy, but that it's possible. Once you realize that, everything else — the plane, the restaurants, the hostels — is just gravy, and taking that mental load off makes getting out the door and on the road a hell of a lot easier, which is a good thing. Just my humble opinion, anyways.
Please be gentle.
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Sandals–bravo, stick that neck out! Don't worry, I don't bite, I just rant. You're right to a certain extent that getting from Point A to Point B could, technically, be done without money. Or at least, without starting out with money. But I think it is much, much more complicated than it is made out to be, particularly if one is not a white European/American. Sorry to put that out there so blatantly, but I remember traveling with my Ghanain (not sure bout the spelling there, sorry)-American ex-boyfriend and trying to hitchhike, and we waited hours and hours and hours until finally he stood in the bushes and I scored us a ride and he jumped out–surprise!! That only worked once, and then we were forced to take the bus. This was in France, but I don't think it'd be too different in the U.S. I also can't imagine my Mexican husband getting a whole lot of rides, either.
And as far as international travel goes, the issue gets a lot more complicated. Visas, jobs, languages, etc, become big obstacles to tackle without some money to start out with, particularly if one is not a European or native English speaker.
That said, I do think you make a really good point about making the first step to just get going, and forgetting about having everything perfectly in line and paying for every second of it. And it takes a really huge leap of faith to do that, and a ton of courage, but if you think more about the experience and less about "gravy" you could do it. It's the ol' time vs. money thing. If you're willing to put yourself out there with no limits, and go for however long/whatever it takes, then you can do it. Or at least attempt it. You just made me want to walk to Belize with my dog (the latest travel plan floating through my head.)
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You're right, of course, Sandals, and I agree that it's good to get people thinking outside the box. But the catch for me is, the definition of the word "possible". Of course it's possible: but for many people, doing so would require abandoning their children, their ailing family members, and so on. I hate to say "abandoning their responsibilities" because that tends to be code for the cubicle job and the mortgage (both optional) — but the problem is, many of these "anyone can do it!" articles ignore the fact that people DO have "responsibilities" — intensely human, non-consumerist ones, even.
I have friends who don't travel because they're busy bathing their sick grandparents every night, and earning an income to help feed those same grandparents by day — and articles that suggest they're buying into some twisted consumerist "bullshit" (sorry, Tim, yours seems to be the example du jour here) by NOT throwing everything away and traveling will never fail to irk/offend me.
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