Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain
Anthony BourdainRead
The notion that before you even set out to go to Thailand, you say, 'I'm not interested,' or you're unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don't understand that, and I think it's rude. You're at Grandma's house, you eat what Grandma serves you.
Interpretation
Embrace new experiences and cultures, especially when visiting someone's home.
Anthony Bourdain emphasizes the importance of being open to new experiences and customs, particularly when visiting a place that is deeply esteemed by others, like Thailand. He suggests that rejecting these opportunities can be seen as disrespectful and closes one off from the richness of cultural exchange.
In practice
Using the quote in a travel blog discussing the importance of immersing oneself in local culture.
Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain
My brain and body and nervous system, they see a plane ride, a long plane trip, as an opportunity to sleep with nothing coming in, nothing to do. I just go offline the minute I'm on the plane.
I'm very proud of the Rome episode of 'No Reservations' because it violated all the conventional wisdom about making television. You're never, ever supposed to do a food or travel show in black and white.
If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.
I feel that if Jacques Pepin shows you how to make an omelet, the matter is pretty much settled. That's God talking.
The celebrity-chef thing, even at its worst, its most annoying, its silliest, its goofiest, its most egregious and cynical, has been a good thing.
And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it's a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.
You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown, that reveals you with yourself.
The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind.
Go at least once a year to a place you've never been before.
Each time I go to a place I have not seen before I hope it will be as different as possible from the places I already know. I assume it is natural for a traveler to seek diversity, and that it is the human element that makes him most aware of difference. If people and their manner of living were alike everywhere, there would not be much point in moving from one place to another.
Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life
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