You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
To be a mass tourist, for me,...is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the existential emptiness of mass tourism and its impact on self-identity.
David Foster Wallace's quote critiques the experience of mass tourism, highlighting how it can lead to a disconnection from one's true self and an unsettling realization of one's triviality in the grand scale of existence. He argues that while tourists contribute economically to their destinations, this role can be accompanied by feelings of insignificance and discomfort, suggesting that the rush and chaos of tourism can strip away genuine human experience and connection.
Themes
TourismExistentialismSelfIdentityCritique
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used during a discussion on the impacts of mass tourism on personal identity.
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Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
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