Travelers

“Someone who is traveling or who travels often; a person who moves around from place to place instead of living in one place for a long time” –Merriam Webster Dictionary–

On the surface the definition sounds good, but there is more to this than meets the eye–only incurious individuals can never cognize. In short, it is a complicated lifestyle one man will consider while another person to tolerate–both insiders and outsiders must absorb the complexity it brings–it doesn’t matter when or where. 

If you have been a traveler all your life or once, then you are beginning to have hints where this conversation is going–or perhaps not. Good for you if you had a different perspective about other travelers aside from yourself or simply an opposite experience than mine.    

Half of my existence is happy and the rest is regretful to have known travelers along the way. As always I will not name names to gratify my rage and my joy writing down my thoughts about this subject. I only have one intention for this specific post–an indirect speech. 

When I first traveled outside my domicile it gave me joy (it still does in few occasions) meeting people from diverse cultures. For one reason I was too naive of so many things around me. Funny me, but that feeling of excitement made me so oaf about the real world at the same time. 

Now I’m completely unlike. Of course I don’t want to be clumsy expressing my comments and so I must be careful with the choice of words here. First and above all, there are a lot of travelers from the so called first-world-countries who are very culturally insensitive and disoriented. And this surprised me big time–so flabbergasted. They are so annoying. 

Sorry for this and I am not labeling everyone. Their (particularly those people I knew and met) greediness, arrogance, superiority complex, stupidity, racism, behaviors, and ignorance towards insiders chill me to the bone. They behave like they haven’t known the word CARE. They are just full of prejudices, complaints, whining, and dissatisfaction. They scared me to death. 

My family is no rich and I’ve been very transparent about it, but I don’t act like I’m culturally isolated not knowing anything. In fact these people are well educated and that makes me so sad. Now I know why it was so difficult to find angels while traveling which I assumed would be easy.  

On the one hand, this also made me realize that advanced education or modern orientation is no guarantee to becoming a well-mannered being or travelers–it is but one’s prerogative. Like a writer who has to decide the fate of his characters–and so them. Isn’t it human is born with free will?     

If for every traveler is the same, then I don’t mind going just for a bivouac–where and when I didn’t have to prolong my agony in the presence of these people. Happy to say every traveler is totally dissimilar. 

In my entire life as a backpacker (who travels often), I still cannot define the true nature of every traveler. It is so complex for comprehension indeed.