I was spitting mad, having just endured a four-hour flight, economy class, on American Airlines where I'd found myself seated between two gigantic sp… - Anthony Bourdain

It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after,you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and whats happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there- with your eyes open- and lived to see it.

Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks - on your body or on your heart - are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.

If experience teaches us anything, it’s that the very last thing a television audience wants to hear or be reminded of is how bad things are, how unhealthy or how doomed — that we’re heading off a cliff and dragging our kids after us. (Unless it’s accompanied by bombastic accusations of conspiracy — and a suitable candidate to blame for the problem.) It’s bad business to be saying all sorts of awful, alarmist shit like that — particularly when it’s true. It is much better business, always, to tell people, over and over again, in a reassuring voice (or, better yet, a loud, annoying one) that everything is just fine. It’ll all work out.