Report From The Eye Of The Storm

Return with us now to the thrilling theme of "traveler versus tourist," a metaphor we here at the Far Side Global Headquarters - deep in the jungles of Borneo - have adopted for our worldview.

The reader may think of this column as a follow-on to our last screed called, "Who Is More The Fool?"  In today's edition, we will explore "traveler versus tourist" as it applies to "diversity."

As we have developed our metaphor, we have shown that a traveler enters new realms of culture and experience as an observer and reporter.  The traveler attempts to meld as much as possible into the surroundings and taste the sweet and bitter of the foreign world.  The traveler does not judge nor discriminate.  The traveler understands that the surrounding culture has developed over spans of time and he seeks to understand why.

The tourist, on the other hand, brings his culture with him.  He seeks to impose his own norms and standards on the surrounding land.  He is the evangelist, the one who thinks his way is better, or at least more comfortable, and so forces conformity in order to feel less threatened.

In terms of mainstream labels, we may think of travelers as conservatives (seeking to conserve), while tourists are liberals (seeking to liberate).  The conservative wishes to conserve what is found in any given place, while the liberal wishes to change everything to suit some "greater good."

A traveler is conscious of his tracks and tries to minimize his impact on the surroundings.  Instead, he absorbs the local flora and fauna, making deep mental records and spending great amounts of time pondering and examining the context in which he finds himself.

This is not to say the traveler accepts everything at face value or is naive.  If he finds himself in a land where ritual cannibalism and human sacrifice are the norm, he does not wait around to examine the roots of these beliefs, he simply steps quietly but quickly to the exit.

On the other hand, we have the tourist.  The tourist is deathly afraid of having any experience that is outside his zone of comfort.  He is convinced that local cuisine is filthy and infested, and so brings his comfortable McFoods with him.  He is convinced that local accommodations are rat-eaten and sub-standard, and so brings his Holiday-Innian experience with him.  He believes the locals are heathens that must be converted to whatever system of belief he holds dear.  He criticizes the local customs and beliefs as ridiculous and beneath his consideration.  To a tourist, everything is wrong but his own standards.

In the past three years, I have found myself in a very curious position, straddling the traveler-tourist paradigm.

I have been deeply involved in building a "western" style arts center in Jakarta, where the owner has wanted to bring "western" style shows to the city.  On the other hand, I have been dealing with "western" companies wanting to break into the Indonesian market with their wares.  On both sides of the equation, I have run head-long into the tourist mentality.  The locals want international shows, but are not willing to learn and accommodate international standards.  The foreign companies want to enter the local market without accommodating local styles of doing business.  The locals think that "international standard" is the way something looks, and the outsiders think that "international standard" means the way we do it back home.

It is the perfect storm with your humble traveler standing at precisely the geodetic center of the storm.

On the one hand, I want to help the locals bring these massive foreign shows, and want to teach them the styles and methods of doing it.  On the other hand, I know the mentality of the foreign shows, who expect a certain modus operandi on the receiving end.

It is a delicate situation in which your humble traveler finds himself.  I believe both sides are right.  I know how these mass-market shows operate - god knows I've helped create enough of them.  On the other hand, I know the the locals have developed their style of doing business over centuries of physical isolation from the rest of the world, being a chain of islands fairly remote from any mainland.

For your humble reporter, it is both gleefully fun and infinitely frustrating.  On the one hand, I want to help the locals fit into the international market they so desperately want to join, and on the other hand, I want to help the foreigners fit into the market they do desperately want to join.

The immovable object meets the irresistible force.  It is not an enviable position, since I have had my share of both sides railing against me.  Both sides expect me to be able to change the other, yet my personal mentality is that both sides are completely right.

Such is the life of a traveler.

It would be so easy to be a tourist.  I could force whichever side I chose onto the other.  What I have chosen, however, is to find some way to blend the two, in the hopes of making both better for the experience.

In point of fact, I am in the position of believing that the "western" way of doing shows is the right way - in its context.  And I believe that the Indonesian way of doing business is right - in its context.  When the two contexts meet, one can begin to appreciate the fun I have had for the past three years.

I must become a travelist or a tourer, but in either case I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.

Centuries ago, Marco Polo was the first Westerner to record his travels in Indonesia - specifically in the area of central Sumatera around the modern city of Medan - where he met the Batak people.  In his wake, Lutheran missionaries followed and were slaughtered and occasionally eaten by the Batak.  That is, until a fellow by the name of Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen showed up and converted a large number of Batak to Lutheranism.  To this day, the Batak have a unique church (HKBP) that separates them from all other Indonesians.  In simplistic terms, the church is western Lutheranism blended with the Batak language and sensibilities.  A new culture created from the blending of two otherwise clashing ones.

It is possible to make a hybrid culture without surrendering the more profound elements of the progenitors.  However, it is not an enviable position to be at the crux of the effort.  It is akin to hanging on to the blades of a blender, trying to maintain one's identity while at the same time trying to make the rest of the mix into a homogeneous mass.  All sides want what the other has without surrendering any part of what they bring, or accepting any part of what they want.

Your humble traveler stands at the center of the plains of Geddon, amidst the final conflagration, and tries to maintain enough individuality to report on the destruction of both sides.  Perhaps I will be slaughtered and eaten, perhaps I will find that happy medium and become a patron saint.  Either way, I will destroy something and build something else.

History is yet to be written.

But one thing I am assured of...I am a traveler.

Post Scriptum - when I first arrived in Indonesia, I had a Batak girlfriend.  One Christmas, I followed her family to the HKBP church.  When it came time for Communion, I went to the front with her.  The first priest looked at me, then asked her (in Batak language), "Does he understand (this)?"  I responded (in the Batak language), "Yes, I do."  He shot a glance at me and his jaw went slack.  Then he passed me down the line without being slaughtered.

That is what travelers do.

Through Bot-Colored Glasses

Euro Riots

It's that time once again.  Clif and the gang at HalfPastHuman have released the latest Shape of Things to Come (SOTTC) report, and depending on your perspective, it's either hopeful or harrowing.

If you are a tourist in life, then the report will likely keep you awake nights worrying about things to come.  If you are a traveler, then you will find the adventure promised in the 51 pages something to anticipate as the birth pangs of a new order in the world.

And when I say new order, I am NOT referencing the NWO.  In fact, the NWO, as anyone who has followed my rantings here knows, is really the Old World Order, dating back thousands of years.

The bots are outlining a truly new order of things, in which the reptilian guard of yesteryear have finally pushed the last button and have reaped the harvest of what they have sown.

Within the pages of the SOTTC report, we learn that anyone holding a title of royalty or whose job description contains the word "pope" will not be happy with events forcast for the next two years.  The image we should form in our minds is of a lump of clay being squeezed in an iron fist.  The tighter the grip, the more of the clay squirts through every least opening.

As I posited in my article Dog Days of August, the PTB are running scared.  They are losing control of their Monster, a la Frankenstein.  The only response they can formulate in their pea-sized, inbred brains is MORE control...more cameras, more police, more brainwashing.  They can't conceive of any other way.  They are a hammer whose only view of the world is a box of nails.

The problem they don't seem to be able to wrap their puny minds around is that when the crowd knows the trick, the magic doesn't work, and nothing you do will get it back.  I think it's safe to say that they had envisioned the internet as yet another channel of control, but it backfired.  Now it is the very medium of their own undoing, which is why they must shut it down.

Mount Merapi, Java, Indonesia

The bots, however, say something different.  The PTB will attack the net and they will shut it down, but it will only be temporary.  The truth has an amazing facility for leaking from any outlet it can find.  Though the number of people that have truly awoken are a small percentage, great changes have ridden the backs of small numbers.  The (first) American Revolution was spawned by no more than 3% of the population, but they had the most powerful weapon know to us mortals...Truth.

Where the bots turn foreboding, though, is in the Terra entity.  Clif calls the coming Terra changes part of Expando-Planet.  The theory goes something like this: in an electrically active Universe, our planet has a plasma core, and when charged particles from the Sun and Universe enter the core, they convert to additional mass, thus swelling the core and expanding the crust (where we live).  During times of particularly active solar and cosmic bombardment, the core expands rapidly, with the result that we crustal denizens are subject to volcanoes, earthquakes, rips, splits, sinkholes, and any number of other fun and interesting things.

Living in a country with the greatest number of volcanoes on Earth, and sitting on a shattered piece of the crust, as Indonesia does, doesn't engender great solace, in this regard.  Just recently, Mt. Tambora started rumbling for the first time in 200 years.  It is known as the volcano that caused the worst volcanic disaster in modern times, and caused the Year Without Summer in 1816.  Considering the bots also advise aware folks to invest in firewood and heating oil this coming (long) winter, one has to wonder if there's a connection.

Certainly, the number of 6+ earthquakes has been steadily rising over the past decade.  Having already experienced a 7.2 here in 2009, I can tell you I am in no particular hurry to reprise the experience.  But, it does make for a nice segue into Fukushima...

Inspired by the bot output, consider this scenario:

ANNOUNCER: "That's right!  Our cucumbers are guaranteed to give off 12 microsieverts or less of gamma particles!  And if you order now, we'll throw in this handy pocket Geiger counter, absolutely free!  But, that's not all!  The next 100 callers will receive a full bushel of unradiated raw wheat and enough barley seed to produce three month's supply of healthy sprouts for a family of four.  Remember, our produce is certified to glow one-third less than any other food products on the market today.  In fact, if you can find kidney beans with less Cesium-137 than ours, we'll happily refund your money.  Call now!  Operators are standing by!"

Can't happen?  Impossible?  Believe me, we good folks of the world haven't heard half the story out of Fukushima, and that's just one of a dozen reactors with problems that have made even the slightest mention in the MSM (mind shinking media).

In yet another prophetic post, my last two columns (Of Secrets and Lies, Bugging Out and Other Hobbies) eerily leaped off the pages of the SOTTC report.

One major theme is the coming exposure of the Zionists.  It seems much of what I wrote in Of Secrets and Lies will become common knowledge over the next year or so.  Once again (as in WWII), the Zionists will try to deflect the ire of good folks onto the Jews, who have been the whipping dogs of the Zionists for centuries.  Unfortunately, it seems they will be successful, at least for a time.  However, we are entering a time when the old tricks don't work anymore, and this is one of the most egregious of them all.

The rise of great numbers of transnationals was also covered in SOTTC.  It seems that combinations of a Nazi resurrection, unfriendly winters and economic woes will cause a never-before-seen diaspora of people seeking more comfortable climes (in every sense of that term).  It's interesting that a number of countries have been reforming their immigration laws of late, to make them friendlier to transnationals.  I'll cover that in more detail in a later article.

The most worrisome tale woven by the bots is the economic 'perfect storm' approaching.

As in all Depressions, we are sailing head-long into deflation.  Deflations favor those with NO debt and lots of disposable cash, as prices fall making money more valuable.  The problem is that the forecast is for the complete collapse of fiat currencies, starting with the dollar.  "Great," you say, "I've got my gold!"  Well, about that...FDR's Executive Order confiscating gold and silver has never been rescinded, and similar actions on the part  of other governments is quite conceivable.

In a nutshell, if you're in debt (which most folks are), you're screwed.  If you're in cash (which some folks are), you're screwed.  If you've got gold and silver tucked away, you're screwed.  So what's a man to do to protect his family?

Food, water, tools, firewood, guns/ammo...basically anything that's useful for flat-out survival will be the new currency.  A little farm land and the means to protect it would be useful, but it does have the draw-back of locking you into one spot.

The biggest problem people are facing is what Clif calls the normalcy bias.  In other words, being incapable of thinking outside the box.  Coming events will favor those who can conceive of novel solutions to novel situations.  Most folks will be running their generators (if they have one) to keep the plasma TeeVee going, when abnormal responses are what will ensure survival.  Making your way to a tropical rain forest while everyone else is huddling in the cities...a back-pack rigged for deep wilderness while everyone else is trying to haul around their C-rations...that sort of thing.

And why rain forests?  Well, you'd be in a year-round growing season, with wild food for the picking, and you're surrounded by people who are used to having nothing and living off the land.  Beats even the most rural patch of farmland in North America.  It's one reason I live in Indonesia now.

Fukushima, Japan

Up to this point, I've just touched on a few of the bigger issues raised by the bots.  We're on roughly page 25 or 51, and I haven't mentioned half of what's in the front of SOTTC.  Universe favors the prepared mind.  I spend free hours thinking of scenarios and coming up with solutions that few if anyone else has thought of.  The hardest thing to overcome is the 'normalcy bias'.  You have to be prepared to shed everything in an instant and go against the crowd, which is why I try to get folks thinking about touring and traveling in so many of my articles.  Travelers are almost always ready for just about anything the Universe throws our way.

Something like having a knife, pair of scissors and magnifying glass anywhere you go at all times.  Even if I'm completely caught off guard, I can always skin a cat and start a fire.

The Shape of Things to Come report is available at HalfPastHuman.com, for $10 (downloadable PDF file). It's worth ten bux if for no other reason, it gets you to think about "what if".  Once you start doing that, you're well on your way to being a traveler.

On Traveling and Touring

In life, there are two basic kinds of people. All behavior, all personalities, all characters can be distilled down into one of these. Unlike other classification systems, there is little or no cross-over. You are absolutely one or the other.

In essence, all people are either travelers or tourists. You may not think there is a difference, but bear with me on this. When I am finished, you will see that this system is a fine way to classify anyone, and there is no need for such things as matrices, since there are only two ans ince they are absolute.

On the one hand are Travelers. Travelers are the group that include adventurers, thrill-seekers, life-long learners, entrepreneurs, and people for whom safety zones are confining and restrictive. This group would include pioneers, discoverers and people for whom pushing the envelope is just starting to get fun. A traveler avoids major highways and interstates like the plague. For them, going to "popular" tourist destinations is the antithesis of excitement. If millions have done it, then what's the point in emulating their experience?

Travelers are easy to identify. They commonly carry multi-function tools every day of their lives. At the airport, train station or boat landing, they are often alone and all of their baggage is highly practical, completely portable and doesn't require checking anything for handling. If you were to examine their baggage, you would find everything in it to be of multiple use, and most likely they will be carrying a towel (a tourist expects towels to be provided wherever they go).

A travelers will rarely interact with natives of their own land. They prefer to mix with locals, learn the language and eat the same food and in the same manner as those of the host country.

Travelers rarely carry cameras. Where they go is for their own memories, not for entertaining the meek back home. Furthermore, they don't want to attract the wrong people to the places they like to go, so they don't advertise the locations and experiences. Even with photos to proves it, most people wouldn't believe their stories anyway. A location where a traveler is most unlikely to meet others of their kind are the places that attract them. Travelers prefer the experiences that no one else but the natives have experienced.

The Tourist, on the other hand, is the polar opposite, and comprises the vast majority of people on Earth. These are the people who have made America what it is: purveyor of the repeatable experience. These are the people who go to Paris, meet only with other folks from the home country, require guides, stay in Holiday Inn, eat at McDonald's, and then go home and say that they have been to Paris.

The Ugle American is the quintessential tourist. They only speak Merican and think the whole world does. If a local doesn't understand, they speak louder and slower, thinking that will solve the problem. They can't imagine that anyone would want to be anything but like themselves. They want to go to the Eifel Tower, because somehow the millions of photos spanning the entire history of the object is not enough. They must go and touch it like a million other people. Tourists think that a somewhat stable pile of steel girders is a worthy object of pilgrimage. They can't wait to get home and regale their friends with tales and photos of what it was like to ride the elevator to the top, as if that is different from any other elevator ride available up the street at home.

The tourist is easy to spot. They wear garish clothes and, at the sirport or train station, they are the ones with a trolly loaded six feet high with baggage. To them, losing the make-up kit is a major catastophe that threatens the stability of the Free World.

The tourists wants a repeatable experience. They want the hotel, meal or tour that they are comforable with at home, and have experienced many times. Their biggest thrill in life is to be able to say, "Me too!" Their entire goal in going on a trip is to take a photo of themselves in front of some landmark. They wake up at night in a cold sweat at the thought of running out of traveler's cheques.

The traveler and the tourist both collect souvenirs, but the objects the traveler finds are mostly meaningless to anyone but themselves. The tourist buys the little key chains and paper-weights and refrigerator magnets. The travelers spend most of their lives far outside their comfort zones, where tourists have never even explored the limits of theirs. A traveler will try some unknown food where the tourist is shocked if the local KFC doesn't serve original recipe.

In short, the tourist goes to the Grand Canyon and looks down in the hole from the safety of the Kodak Moment overlook, while the traveler hikes deep into it with only minimal concern for life and limb.

So, what does all this have to do with the price of tea in China, you ask? Good question. The The next time you hear some "authority" give dire warnings of terrorism and offer to take away your freedoms to save you, check your reaction. If you think it's a good idea, you're a tourist in life. If you immediately have a desire to go to the heart of the 'danger zone' to prove it's all bullshit, then you're a traveler. The traveler knows that the real terrorist is the one who tries to manipulate you with fear.

The great Merican Imperialist, FDR said it best, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."