Traveling Brings Layers Of Humanity Your Own Country Can Never Bring Out In You

Collection: Ambiguous, Not Amphibious

Format: Aphorism

Author: Melissa Nadia Viviana

Date: October 14, 2012

Tags: Fascism, Tech Overlords, Boycotts, Consumer Ethics

Ambiguous, Not Amphibious is a reader-supported publication by Melissa Nadia Viviana: Author, Activist, Existentialist, & Philosopher.

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The problem with stereotyping is that it’s only a pattern, a category. We meet three people from a country who happen to behave some way and think we’ve figured out the gist of an ethnicity, nationality, or race.

But what if dense amounts of patterns in a demographic are actually learned behaviors?

There are patterns in human behavior. But those that are natural are cross-cultural. The human desires will be found all over the globe.

Within each country or nationality, there are many natural variations.

Just like siblings can be bold and shy. Book smart or athletic. We find all kinds of traits within a single family.

What if what makes us who we are isn't the way we act the same. That's just LEARNING. What really makes us who we are is how we act differently. The impulses that come out from a secret source within us.

I think the truth is, I don’t consider myself American. I think deep inside of myself I consider myself a traveler. A wanderer. A chameleon. A person with fluidity––that’s why I embrace other cultures so passionately.

When we travel, we develop the capability to observe a country from the outside and, upon returning, apply that perception to our own country. We then see our own charming quirks and absurd idiosyncrasies.

I find myself a little bit more each time I travel.

When I think back to high school in Upstate New York––even if I see an online profile of people I knew in high school––I shudder. I recoil. I’m traumatized that every single one of them seems so localized. So grounded in a permanent reality. Already settled into a life with a spouse and kids, even though they’re all in their early twenties.

But growing up in towns I didn’t resonate with is what made me seek the rest of the world for inspiration.

I recognized within myself a potential for universality. A foreign element. An element perhaps even I’m unfamiliar with. An element that America will never be able to bring out in me.