S4E39 Why do I talk about traveling so much?

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (0s): Good morning Bowes and bow ties. So look, for those of you who are new to my channel, you probably hear me talk about traveling a lot. And so that kinda like gives you an idea of the kind of things that I enjoy. I do like to travel. Now, let me just say this. When I say travel, oftentimes when I'm, when I talk about traveling, I am thinking internationally. But to be honest, I'm also thinking within, you know, your, your country as well, you know, domestically.

Now for those of you who live here in United States, you know how big this country is. And so we can go to the four corners and see a completely different environment or landscape or whatever, But. anyway, I wanna get into why I chit chat about it. you know, I feel like oftentimes many of us Americans will obviously don't have passports, but we don't like to venture outside of where we are, like where we grew up.

And so we get stuck in a mindset, get stuck in these mindsets, and we don't know of anything other than our general area. We, we we're comfortable with our conveniences and we, you know, we're comfortable with our family and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being comfortable with your, where you grew up, your family and friends. But I think the reason why I push the travel thing, well, I don't think I know one of the reasons why I push it so much. Just because, you know, when I think about people who live here in the us, like we have no concept of struggles outside of the United States.

We have no concept of things that are good outside of the United States. We think like, like we truly are the center of the universe. And I understand why people think that way, but I feel like oftentimes like we just don't get it. Like, we don't understand that there's another way of life. you know, there are flavors to things called poverty. Like there, there are flavors to this thing called like child rearing, right? Like how child rearing is more supported outside of this country.

But then also when I think about poverty, you know, when people talk about how poor they are, don't get me wrong that people are struggling here too, but like there's a whole other level to poverty when you go to some places where, you know, the, the, the, also the environment's just really, really just, you know, I mean people don't understand, like, for example, here, the cost of food is so high, but in some places there, there is no food to buy, right?

Or in some places, there, there is no medication that you can really get. You can't get, you can't acquire. like, you can't even buy it if you wanted to. I, think about in places where just access to medical care. We talk about, you know, United States, but like, they have to travel so far just to see a doctor so people don't even go to, to the doctor. So who knows what the real statistics are on certain things that get measured, right?

'cause like, people like preventative care. you know, when people are talking about like, yeah, like it's, it takes us a minute to, to, to see a doctor, get to a doctor. So, you know, I guess to me it just puts things in perspective. It really does. It puts things in perspective. I, I feel like here, and don't get me wrong, we have our situations here are problems here, but you know, everything is relative.

I feel like they're so out of touch with the rest of the world. We are, but we're so out of touch and we have no concept of what struggle is like for other people. I think about the fact that like, you know, my children wake up every day, And, they walk outside and there's no fear of bullets flying across their, their, you know, front stoop.

Now if you live in a place like Baltimore, well yeah, you probably have those concerns, but then when you think about places that are dealing with skirmishes that don't make it to the US news, but makes it to other people's news, you have children who have lived a life where they have to be vigilant at all times because you don't know if that's gonna be your last day with all of these skirmishes, you know, people raid your villages or whatever it is, you know, I.

think about how I got up this morning and turned the engine over in my vehicle and I'm driving to work. You know, people don't think about these things and it's kind of hard. It's kind of like if you've never been poor, you can't, you can't fathom why people aren't complaining about the cost of a gallon of milk. But, and, and so like I look at like the United States, you know, people who never left the United States can't really fathom what happens to other areas of the world, right?

Because they, they, it's like they, they don't know how to make that connection. And I feel like the only way you can really truly get it is to leave and to see and to experience for yourself. You look at the way other people maybe try to maintain good health 'cause they don't have access to some of the modified cases, right? And so maybe it's the diet that they use to control their health. Imagine that, and I don't wanna paint, paint such a bleak picture because there's a lot of great things that happen worldwide, but the point I'm making is I always tell people like they need to get out of their environment.

And when you see like how other people are living, you begin to understand like there's other ways of life. There's, there's ways of solving problems that maybe we haven't thought of because we hadn't been produ. We haven't been introduced to a unique situation such as the one that is presenting itself over there. Like I. think about here, we talk about, okay, you know, like here, it never even is a question in our minds, except in maybe like Detroit, you turn on your faucet and you have potable water.

Like this is like normal convenience or normal everything. And I remember when I was visiting an old college friend, if, if I remember correctly, I was visiting her in Singapore and she had a staff of people, I won't say like a staff, but she had a few people who were, you know, working for her And. they came from a really, really poor place.

And I remember she was telling me something so simple as when she was showing them how to maintain, like how to use the laundry, the, the the washer washing machine, just understanding like how the water comes out, how much detergent to use. Like it was like a whole other world. Like literally taking someone from third world country to first world. Now, I don't wanna get into any kind of discussion about what is ethical or not about the situation. I just wanna talk about the fact that it was like a whole other world for these young ladies who were providing a service for her.

You know, I'll say this, when you leave here and you go someplace, I don't care if you go to the Caribbean, I don't care if you go to, I have not been to India. You will learn something. You will undoubtedly learn something. Like people do things like the way they, they, they, they don't have air conditioning, then maybe they dress a certain type of way, and then of course their body adapts to the environment. You look at the way people eat.

I remember the first time when I left the country, I was 18 years old. I went to China with my college. And I remember, and this sounds like such a silly thing, but like, I just remember something so simple as, okay, is this car getting, I mean, are you getting over what, what is happening right now? I remember walking down the street, I was in Beijing now, this was back in 1999.

And I was walking down the street and the people, well one, they weren't used to seeing a black person, so everyone was staring, right? Like, they had no concept of any kind of, I, I don't know, it was just ridiculous. but I remember every time we went out, like everything was like fresh, like the, where we were at the time, like refrigeration, you know, like the con like, like they, they know of the situation, but like they didn't, they don't eat like that. They like, they go and get their food every day.

A lot of places in Europe doesn't do that too. But the point I'm making is, I remember I was like really shocked. I was like, well, where's the refrigerator? Where is this And? they were looking at me like, no, we get fresh fish every day. Like, it's just little things like that. And you learned about new medicines, you learned about so many new things. I remember I was coming back from Tanamen Square and I was getting ready to pass out.

Like, I don't know what I had, I had some sort of like stomach bug and plus it was like 5 billion degrees outside. And I remember somebody had to come back with me. It was all a blur. We used to carry around these little business cards that said in Chinese, like, please take me back to so and so and so, like blah, blah, blah. Like in case you got lost or whatever. So I'm in the cab, I get back to wherever I was. I was down and out. I, I could not, like, I had some sort of stomach bug. I, I don't know, maybe it was something with the water, I don't know.

But like American medicines that, you know, they tell you to bring 'cause you know, different environment. They didn't work. This young lady, not young lady, this older lady, this lady came in, she might have been about like 500 years old. She came in, didn't speak a look of English, and she had on a little tap, like it was like this little tablet thing. Like, you know, like the things that you use, like if you're gonna pay your bill out a restaurant and the bill on there. So she comes in, one of these little things had the two tiniest tablets in the world, like little, just little medicine pills, excuse me.

And I remember she said something like, take this. And I was like, what? And I was, you know, I know those things weren't FDA a approved. What I do know is I took those two tablets and I know I was up the next day. Like, like not even the next day. I think it might've been hours. And I was like, I don't know what she gave me, but it's everything. I don't know. I look, I don't know. All I knew was I was healthy.

The point I'm making is you learn new things. There's new medicines, new ways of living, new ways of staying cool, new ways of eating, new ways of preserving your food without all the preservatives. There's, there's so, so many things you learn. I, I remember when I was living in Germany and I remember I would see people come outside And, they would sweep their front stoop every day. And I used to always wonder like what they sweep their front of their stoop, you know, like people just took so much pride in, in their surroundings, But.

anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there because I feel like the United and people here in the United States, and even though we're going through what we're going through, I feel like because we, we have these large bodies of water on both sides of us that we struggle with understanding the plight of other people. We don't border too many countries. We border Canada and Mexico. So I feel like we're so far removed, you know, from understanding what happens with other people.

And trust me, I don't have it all figured out. I mean, like, I still feel like I walk in ignorance, but I just feel like I'm less ignorant than I was when I was 18 years old and I got on a plane to go to China. all right, that's all I got.

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