Shit on the internet.

[Vesnic]

Spoken like a true armchair traveler, End. No, things aren't the same everywhere you go and there are differences between people, although these differences are probably shrinking thanks to those who really do treat the whole planet like their waste dump, no matter if they're in Mozambique, Monaco or Montana. I'm not even fucking in Berlin right now; the above quote about "this town" is not meant to be taken overly literally.

Sometimes the differences aren't enough. Sometimes one looks for more because there is something one wants to find. That doesn't imply this massive universal theory of sameness that you seem to favor so strongly, you know, the one that allows you to mumble "fuck it" and cease to think any further on the matter.

[End Master]

Well yes, of course there are differences, but they're all pretty superficial in the scheme of things and ultimately meaningless unless you feel some great emotional tie to them. Which I don't really have with…well most things actually.

However, by your own words and complaints on here you've just said that a lot of these "differences" are disappearing due to assholes making the world a worse place. (Yes, I'm probably one of them due to apathy, but hey fuck it) Going by that, why should I go traipsing across the globe to look for something I can probably find right around the corner if I REALLY desired to find it?

I'm reminded of when I used to watch all those Canadian PBS shows when I was little (Living in Detroit came in handy at least for that reason) that were a lot more worldly than their American counterparts and they would show all these foreign countries and how people would live there and such.

It was obviously a way of teaching kids to appreciate other cultures and such.

All I could think is, "Wow, those places really suck. They're living in their own filth and ramshackle huts. Why the hell would I ever want to go there? I'm glad I live here." (You're fully aware of these shitholes, considering you actually travelled to one of these places)

Yes, I probably learned the wrong lesson, however even with 1st world countries I still don't have any major desire to travel. It just isn't there. I'm not particularly drawn to any particular European culture for various reasons, so I really wouldn't get anything out of it save for a huge bill and bunch of hassle.

But this doesn't even have to be a world thing. I can use various parts of America with the same example.

The Grand Canyon, yes it's an impressively large hole created by the wondrous powers of mother nature. Do I want to go traveling to see it? No, because its still a giant fucking hole and I don't care and I know myself well enough that wasting a bunch of money to go see it in person isn't going to make me appreciate it any more.

I've just known so many people go on about where they've traveled, where they've been and they don't seem any more intelligent, they don't seem anymore worldly, and they don't seem any better off.

They're ultimately the same assholes that have just been to a few more places on the globe and pontificate either:

1. About how "impoverished" X" country and how it desperately needs our help and YOU just don't know the same hardship due to living in a 1st world country and a bunch of other bleeding heart bullshit.

2. About how "enlightened" "X" country is and how it's better in every way despite the fact that "X" country just like any other has its own serious problems, but the visitor didn't actually stay there long enough to experience said serious problems and has a rosy tinted glasses view and the actual citizens there most likely hated this visitor the entire time.

3. About all the food and tourist spots they went to, which is probably 90% of folks meaning they wasted a bunch of money just so they could feel like they're "world travelers." when all they really are, are a bunch of dumb tourists wasting money.

I mean let's use Chubby as a closer example. The guy has probably traveled to a lot more to various places than some ever will and it's not like his life seemed a whole lot better off due to all these experiences that most incorrectly believe make you a more "well rounded" person.

But I'm not starting an argument, I was merely engaging in conversation since you were claiming to be bored wherever the hell you were.

And no, I'm NOT comparing you to Chubby or any of assholes I was talking about above, since you actually give more insight of the pros and cons to these various places you go to meaning you're actually getting something out of all it.

And remember I can ONLY go by your posts on here. A few months back you were speaking positively about your world travels and lately for the past few months you've been going on about how whatever place you happen to be at sucks and life sucking in general. I'm merely going by the information I'm given.

Anyway, hope the rest of your travels go better and if they don't well you know my answer, "Fuck it."

[Vesnic]

Well OK, this is interesting, which I guess is what I wanted, so thanks in advance End.

It's not my job to motivate you to travel, as I've never thought it was for everyone. I'm just not sure why you're quite so eager to remove yourself from the list of people who might be in some way benefited by seeing another place, breathing in a different air, experiencing the varieties of life that are subtle yet undeniably there and that you, as a reasonably observant fellow with an encyclopedic memory, would assuredly pick up on. To the best of my knowledge, you are an able-bodied working guy who could pretty easily find the time to visit the Grand Canyon or anywhere else you found even mildly intriguing. Sure, hassle is one's frequent traveling companion, but if merely being inconvenienced is a complete deal breaker for you, then maybe you have bigger problems than just a simple lack of impetus. So you've seen pictures of the Grand Canyon. So have we all. But you wouldn't be able to say what it's like to be at the Grand Canyon, how it feels, what the sensory perceptions are or the thoughts it might inspire in you. Strange thoughts maybe, oddly personal ones, or disjointed ones, but you won't know if you don't go. And going can be an end in itself.

You seem to assume that I and others are seeking a pot of gold at the end of our flight trajectories or are interested in self-betterment through travel. I know you've already exonerated me from the same depths of stupidity as the typical American tourist, but let me make one thing clear: I am a linguist by training and by trade. It's just part of my life that I end up traveling as much as I do. Here on the forums, I share the things that are part of my existence in the same cowardly and circumspect way that everyone else "shares", since we've made it a fait accompli that any larger degree of honesty or directness would probably result in massive fatalities. I did indeed say that I was looking for something, but I didn't tie that something to my physical location.

Here's a story to amuse you. Back at Wellesley, I was obliged to take part in one of their many self-congratulatory conferences where they gathered all the students who had been abroad in the past year and made them give long-winded presentations about just how wonderful and meaningful and helpful the whole thing had been and aren't those shit-out-of-luck natives just so lucky to have us? I stood up and spoke to my experiences in Costa Rica, the ones that had formed the little photo diary here where Chubby and I compared notes on the hellishness of the tropics. In my closing statement, I made it clear that I believed unequivocally that my presence in the little school where I taught was essentially useless and perhaps even damaging to the kids who would not be able to form any sort of solid relationship with me over a more reasonable length of time. I said that my presence there had clearly been more for my sake than for theirs and that I was having difficulty reconciling an ever-deepening sense of shame and embarrassment over the selfishness of my own actions. The trip coordinator never spoke to me again.

I have certainly met many representatives of every type of foreign traveler you categorized in your post. It is pretty embarrassing to be walking down the street and be able to pick out the Americans from a mile off. Whether their intentions are good or not, I do hope that those of them with a bit more firepower upstairs will come away from the experience, not having reached a cheesy forced epiphany, but just in a slightly changed state of being. Speaking a different language is alone enough to open the possibilities of new logical connections, new assumptions, lost assumptions, complex feelings boiled down to a single word that exists only in that one language and can never truly be translated. That sort of shit fascinates me for what it is, not for what it will "do for me" or how good it will make me look. I share my experiences here because they are important to me, that's all.

If you've picked up on a difference in tone from me over the past few months, that's because I've taken one undeserved smack in the face after another. My visa was curtailed without any good reason or explanation and two weeks ago, I had to hie me home to Massachusetts with my tail between my legs, feeling very much like all my hard work, attainment of a Masters and establishing myself in Berlin had all been for naught. It's starting to look up again but yeah, things have been completely hellish for me lately. I've been depressed and angry and consequently, bored, because I've found nothing to inspire me to get back up on my feet again and risk it all just one...more...fucking...time. I'm exhausted and my nerves are shot.

End, I think that both you and I are pretty deeply misanthropic people, but in different ways. You are content to stay in the thick of things but you protect yourself by just not giving a shit, or at least training yourself to not give too much of a shit. I find myself beset on all sides and start fantasizing of what dreamshell maybe meant as a joke or maybe was observing quite keenly: the draw of complete and perfect solitude.

[dreamshell]

(Blah, blah, not relevant to the topic, moving on.)

Ves: I didn't know you were a linguist! I actually enjoy that sort of thing, though I'm too lazy to get into the nitty-gritty of it, and I haven't really tried to learn another language beyond what I picked up in high school.

Here's the long and short of my feelings about travel: I love the idea of it, and the idea of roughing it a bit or working for money as I do so doesn't bother me too much in theory, but I have serious reservations I'd do well with the realities of all that. I'm an extremely private, self-conscious person, not at all used to being around a lot of people and maybe having to be more casual than I'd be comfortable with around them. I also have an intense distaste for putting others out, so things like crashing on someone's couch always makes me a bit uneasy (to say nothing about paranoia as to if you can trust the people you're bunking up with abroad). Then there's the persistent fear in the back of my mind that no matter where I go I'll find myself feeling disillusioned, in part because selling a dream is so easy to do (and perhaps as easy to buy into), as well as the fact that no matter where I go, there I'll be.

To elaborate, the thing about solitude is it can really start to drag if you're not that big a fan of yourself. I've been living in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere for a long while now and my own burning white-hot wanderlust may just be as much a manifestation of wanting to get away from myself (as artsy-fartsy and pretentious as that may sound) as a genuine desire, simply because with new surroundings I'd be forced to focus on shit other than me. 'Cause I kinda hate that guy sometimes.

But as to the feeling of being exhausted and uninspired to "bounce back," I can relate. I'm terrible at making myself press on and persevere, even when I hit the teensy-weensiest widdle bump in the road. The result is I don't have much in the way of actual, objective accomplishments that I can point towards and take pride in and it's sort of a vicious cycle when you're trying to step out into the real world and keep your head up but find yourself starting (or restarting) so late with so little to show.

Looking at it from where I am, Ves, you've already done a hell of a lot to feel proud of (which is not to say you're not 'allowed' to feel like a shitty failure like the rest of us) and your reflections on what you get out of travel vs. what you may or may not be giving in the process seems miles beyond what the average person will bother to consider, though sadly I don't know if good intentions amount to much, nor ultimately help to succeed at one's goals. I'd like to believe people take note of that sort of thing and it pays off in the end, but I think the smarter thing is to expect nothing and do all you can to look out for Number One without having to explicitly fuck anyone else over.

Aaaand I'm not sure I'm keeping on point anymore, so I'll wrap that up as my two cents.

[Vesnic]

Dream, thanks for sharing your thoughts about this. I can empathize on where you're coming from, the uncertainty of how things will pan out and the ever-looming specter of having no one but yourself to meet at the end of the long journey. I am just about number one on my own shitlist. I drive myself crazy. Sometimes I find it exceedingly difficult to have even the slightest feelings of sympathy for myself. This isn't the result of hate, but of years of collected wisdom and irrefutable proof of my own countless faults. I once shared these thoughts with my aunt, who broke down into copious tears, spluttering, "I had no idea your self-esteem was so low!". Well, perhaps it is by the current gauges of this sort of thing. To me, though, self-esteem means exactly nothing more than the occasional accidental side effect. It is not tied in any real way to ambition or to the willingness to work hard. On its own, it is not sufficient to make me suicidal or so timid and unsure that I crawl into a hole. I see my opinion of myself as almost completely irrelevant in the course of my life. I see my place on the negative-positive spectrum as even more accidental and transient, because these value judgments are the mere byproducts of more substantive ideas and emotions. What great value does one get from being positive even in the face of staggeringly obvious impossibility? What great harm is pessimism if it keeps us from falling into our own self-built traps of delusion? When I was laid up in the ICU with a broken neck, my cousin sternly admonished me to "set an example and be a hero". What does that even mean? When you're lying in a bed and you feel the irrefutable brokenness of your own body and the arrogant futility of pretending like you still have the power to determine the immediate or even long-term course of your own life, then heroism has precious little to do with it.

We live in a world that wants to make us feel like losers as often and as profoundly as possible, where the parameters of success are so stiflingly narrow and yet at the same time amusingly stunted and short-sighted, that one simply has to figure out a way to give lip service to the new order without believing a word of it. I cancelled my Facebook account because I couldn't stand all the lies on it, all the silly self-promotion of people whose characters I already knew too well to believe for one instant a word of what they had to crow about themselves. I'm not proud of my departure. I tried to explain to the people whose feelings I didn't want to hurt my reasons for doing it. But of course a degree of social ostracism was the inevitable result. But why? Ten years ago I didn't need a Facebook account to still be a relevant person in my world.

It does matter a great deal who you are and how you behave, how you take on your world and how you treat others. A million examples can be set simply by being you, without damaging compromises. If you want to travel, but are afraid of bunking up with scary people, then maybe save up a bit more money and bunk up on your own. I recently wrote some content for Airbnb and while I can't speak as a client, they seem to have a fair number of legitimate connections where one can find decent private housing at a good cost in almost any town or city in the world. Just remember: it is absolutely not required for you to like yourself when embarking on such an adventure. It fact, it's probably better that you don't, because it will be that much easier to be taken out of yourself and really experience something new without the weighty shackles of you and your ego holding you down.

As to feeling like you haven't amounted to much, all I can recommend is to shut off all the evil external little whisperings in your ear that make you feel that way. God knows there's enough doubt and self-effacement coming from within the minds and hearts of the conscientious (ie, us) without even more shit spewed at us by those with our worst interests at heart.

Nearly all my old friends decided I wasn't worth their while anymore when I found myself delayed by months and even years of recuperation and complications. I can't begin to express how much hurt in my life has been caused by these abandonments. What has gotten me through is my own inner substance, even when it's been turbulent and chaotic, maybe even destructive. But you know what, it's my turbulence and chaos and destruction. It belongs to no one else and is a most palpable proof that, in the immortal words of Richard Pryor, "I ain't dead yet, mothafucka".

We seem to have stopped paying attention to narratives, cultural or otherwise, which remind us of ourselves at our lowest and most vulnerable moments, at our most hopeless and despairing. Yet can we really believe the human condition has improved so much in the last several years, that these realities no longer exist? Quite the opposite! Even if we don't have the guts to tell our own failure stories, we should at least have the guts to call bullshit on all the bloated success stories that leave out 95% of the truth. And the shinier someone sparkles on Facebook or Twitter, most assuredly the more full of shit they are. It's the talented ones who fear they might be impostors after all, who are subject to deep doubts, to indecisiveness and, most of all, to the endless discomfort of their own reflections in the mirror.

[End Master]

Sometimes I think I'm part hobbit considering how much I prefer to stay put.

It is funny you mention a pot of gold though since that is sort of how I approach the how idea of traveling. I really do need a good reason to do it. It's actually sort of interesting how I've had just a resistance to it even going all the way back to childhood.

Went to Canada a few times when I was little, but I wasn't really in control of that and going from Detroit to Windsor was basically just entering a small parallel universe where the shopping was more plentiful and a whole lot less crime, so it wasn't really like a proper travel experience.

The one time I went back to Canada as an adult it was for a class geology project in college so it was more practical purposes. Haven't been back since.

Went to Ohio a few times when I was younger to go to Cedar Point as a family. Obviously I had fun the first couple times, but on the third time, I spent most of my time in the arcade room and didn't really care about the rest of the experience anymore. After that, I didn't really want to go at all despite the fact my mom was suggesting we go (She's a much bigger fan traveling than I) I just felt it would be more practical to save the money to buy a video game, a board game, a book or something similar that I could enjoy without with the need to travel. So we stopped going.

I did go back one more time and the reason? Again it was due to school and it was a free senior graduation trip. Spent most of the time in the arcade room again. (Okay so I did make the effort to ride the rides that were new and I hadn't been on just to space out the time)

I remember when I went to go meet Katie for the first time. She had a big list of places she wanted to take me to all the various sites in Virginia and I wasn't really all that enthusiastic about it.

She probably thought it would make my stay more exciting, fulfilling and I would enjoy it like most normal people enjoy such things. But I preferred to just stay in the hotel room with her.

Now I know that most will be thinking that I felt that way for the obvious reasons. And while that may be part of it, the main reason was because I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible one on one with no other distractions. Going to other places would've detracted from my desired goal/experience not enhance it.

As far as I was concerned, Katie was why I made the trip and so I didn't really care about seeing historical sites or really the rest of Virginia even. (She probably still wants to drag me to said places because we never did get to most of them)

I try to make the trip back to Michigan at least once a year to visit family, but if they weren't around, I definitely wouldn't bother.

By the same token I've gone to California exactly once to visit family and I've never really had any desire to go back. Not even to do it for my own reasons of which I have none. Hell, I probably wouldn't have bothered making the first trip, if Katie didn't convince me to make the trip. (Though this was even before I met Katie in person so maybe the trip to Cali had the positive effect of prepping me for the much less annoying trip to Virginia)

I suppose I can say I've touched the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean though. So yay?

However, I can imagine at some point as events sometimes conspire against me, I will be forced from my hobbit hole and I will probably travel somewhere of note and can also proclaim myself as a world traveler.

I will try to get out of it and I will definitely complain the entire time (As I do with most things), but ultimately I will make the best of it and against my better judgement and only after some needling, I'll actually admit I had a good time…but I'm never doing it again. Lol.

[End Master]

Hey what happened? There was a nice misanthropic rant and an enticing trip to Kenya here before.

[Vesnic]

Sorry, it seemed too self-indulgent, even for me. I woke up with poster's remorse and just axed those two posts. A hard delete this time, none of that halfway "blah blah blah" stuff. Maybe it is a little bit of a loss because the "nice misanthropic rant" was rather well written, mind-altering substances notwithstanding. But alas, it is no more.

In my own personal code book, a deletion is fair game until such time as it's been quoted or responded to, at which point it has entered into the conversation and can no longer be taken back. I think I learned that trick from Locke.

End, here's a writing challenge for you. Taking what you remember of my rant, try to reproduce it in the same thread using the closest approximation you can to my voice and words. Wouldn't it be fun to be me for a post?

[End Master]

I've imitated you in another old thread, but I suppose I could attempt to do it again. Hold on...

[Locke]

http://bettermagazine.org/004/poetthegame.html

old-style text game. English majors will identify.

Is anyone else keeping up with "Life is Strange"?

[donteatpoop]

Give it a minute to warm up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXBGZoBYaLY#t=206

[Vesnic]

Well fuck me. I'd drop 'em a Euro or two.

The didgeridoo has always freaked me out a little, maybe because it sounds a bit like the instrumental version of throat singing, especially that part at the very end. Cool vid.

1:50 that whistle is still just his voice!

[donteatpoop]

Well fuck me. I'd drop 'em a Euro or two.

The didgeridoo has always freaked me out a little, maybe because it sounds a bit like the instrumental version of throat singing, especially that part at the very end. Cool vid.

1:50 that whistle is still just his voice!

Uh throat singing is so fucking weird. Watched the Marco Polo series on Netflix, that's what introduced me to throat singing. What a strange fucking thing for that culture to develop.

[dreamshell]

I've stumbled onto a few interesting text games recently, thanks to mizal mentioning some sites in the 'State of Interactive Fiction Union' thread I was unfamiliar with, and a little investigation of my own;

Horse Master: http://noncanon.com/HorseMaster.html
Tonight Dies The Moon: http://www.antholojam.com/games/Toni...n/themoon.html
The Arboretum: http://www.unwinnable.com/wp-content...tum/index.html
Sacrilege: http://www.unwinnable.com/wp-content...Sacrilege.html
Creatures Such As We: https://www.choiceofgames.com/creatures-such-as-we/
howling dogs: http://aliendovecote.com/uploads/twi...wlingdogs.html

(Also, no hyperlinking, I guess?)

[mizal]

In addition, I'll take a second to gush about Sabres of Infinity (https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-c...s-of-infinity/). IIRC it's about $3, but it's one of the best skill/strategy based CYOAs I've ever played, and its sequel Guns of Infinity (https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-c...s-of-infinity/) just came out as well.