So you've decided to travel around the world. This is an excellent thing to do. It's a precious place, this planet. We should see it. J. Maarten Troost More Quotes by J. Maarten Troost More Quotes From J. Maarten Troost Like many highly educated people, I didn't have much in the way of actual skills. J. Maarten Troost skills people way Paradise was always over there, a day’s sail away. But it’s a funny thing, escapism. You can go far and wide and you can keep moving on and on through places and years, but you never escape your own life. I, finally, knew where my life belonged. Home. J. Maarten Troost home years moving I was simply restless, quite likely because of a dissatisfaction with the recent trajectory of my life, and if there is a better, more compelling reason for dropping everything and moving to the end of the world, I know not what it is. J. Maarten Troost compelling-reason world moving Bwenawa brought my attention to two wooden planks raised about four feet above the ground. On the ledges were lagoon fish sliced open and lying in the sun, the carcasses just visible through an enveloping blizzard of flies. "You see, " said Bwenawa. "The water dries in the sun, leaving the salt. It's kang-kang [tasty]. We call it salt fish." "Ah," I said. "In my country we call it rotten fish. J. Maarten Troost two country lying Like many air travelers, I am aware that airplanes fly aided by capricious fairies and invisible strings. J. Maarten Troost invisible airplane fairy It was as if the sensory overload that is American life had somehow led to sensory deprivation, a gilded weariness, where everything is permitted and nothing appreciated. J. Maarten Troost american-life deprivation appreciated Personally I regard idling as a virtue, but civilized society holds otherwise. J. Maarten Troost civilized-society civilized virtue No one who claims this to be a small world has ever flown across the Pacific. J. Maarten Troost small-world claims world It is often said that Americans have no sense of history. Ask a college student who Jimmy Carter was and they will likely reply that he was a general in the Civil War, which occurred in 1492, when Americans dumped tea into the Gulf of Tonkin, sparking the First World War, which ended with the invasion of Grenada and the development of the cotton press. J. Maarten Troost college tea war I had grown accustomed to life being interesting and adventure ridden and, rather childishly, I refused to believe that this must necessarily come to an end and that the rest of my life should be a sort of penance for all the reckless, irresponsible, and immensely fun things I’d done before. J. Maarten Troost fun adventure believe You can read and read, but nothing eclipses experience. J. Maarten Troost read nothing you experience Few things are more enjoyable than lingering over the atlas and plotting a trip. J. Maarten Troost than over more things It is a remarkably easy thing to do, pointing out the faults of others and suggesting remedies or courses of action in an argumentative and pedantic sort of way, and I am still amazed that there are many people in the American media who are paid very big money to do this. J. Maarten Troost i-am money people way I have been called many things in my life, but if there has been but one constant, one barb, one arrow flung my way time after time, it is the accusation that I am, in essence, nothing more than an escapist. Apparently this is bad, suspect, possibly even un-American. J. Maarten Troost i-am my-life time life The gift of sobriety is clarity and a sense of connection - and travel only enhances that. J. Maarten Troost connection gift clarity travel There's a reason that there are oodles of young Aussies, Germans, Japanese, even Chinese backpackers traipsing around the world. They are unencumbered by debilitating student loans. No such luck for the American Theater Arts major with $120,000 in loans. J. Maarten Troost student luck reason world We don't think much about climate change and rising sea levels here in the U.S. Beyond a few gardeners, birders and hikers who notice the changes in our own ecosystem, we live on, blissfully unaware of our changing Earth. Our storms - Katrina, Sandy - are dismissed as once-in-a-century events. J. Maarten Troost think climate-change change sea Escapism, we are led to believe, is evidence of a deficiency in character, a certain failure of temperament, and like so many -isms, it is to be strenuously avoided. 'How do you expect to get ahead?,' people ask. But the question altogether misses the point. The escapist doesn't want to get ahead. He simply wants to get away. J. Maarten Troost you failure character people
