Don’t Go There!: From Chernobyl to North Korea—One Man’s Quest to Lose Himself and Find Everyone Else in the World’s Strangest Places

by Adam Fletcher

Protesters are almost always the good guys, right? Because protesting is was more effort than not.

I thought about how weird a human quirk it is that we consider whatever is exotic or mostly unachievable beautiful. So while we Europeans are heading out to the tanning salon to get darker skin and sweating our way round laps of the park to lose weight, there are Asian people covering their faces to keep their complexions white while the citizens of Ghana double down on fried chicken to try to stay un-trim. We just love to make it hard for ourselves. We are, in many ways, quite ridiculous.

You confuse freedom with having no responsibilities. But that’s not freedom. That’s just selfishness.”

“Hitler was also democratically elected. There is no virtue in democracy.”

Boredom is a luxury good. This simple statement dug its claws into me and didn’t let go. Of course. I’d lost sight of the extraordinary privilege inherent within boredom. Most people in the world don’t get to decide whether or not to engage in politics. Don’t feel so safe and secure and bored that they actively go out looking for danger, just to feel more alive.

People who aren’t self-reflective in their everyday lives don’t magically uncover new modes of thought or hidden depths of understanding just because they swap Home for Rome or Gloucester for Gabon.