America, I Love you but...

“Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one’s own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live ... in our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation.”
- Anatole Broyard

I once visited a zoo in Kathmandu, Nepal. The zoo was like a poorly-tended hospice; a wasteland of sickly, under-nourished animals who'd been abandoned to die. The lion cage was lined with garbage and the hippos waded through a thick soup of sewage. But perhaps the worst off, were two twin black bears who'd gone insane from being trapped in a six by six foot cell. They paced their cage, back and forth and back and forth and each time they paced past the barred window that faced the entrance of the zoo, they'd bash their heads against it.

This morning I woke up thinking about those bears. Sometimes I feel so trapped here in the US; so stuck. 'Clawing-at-the-walls desperate to escape' sorta stuck. And it's frustrating because I can't pin-point why. There's nothing specific about my life here that I dislike, it's more just this general feeling of unease; this haunting need to break free.

I think Bill Bryson described it best in I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after 20 Years Away, when he wrote:

"I felt as if we'd made a terrible mistake. I had nothing against America, you understand. It's a wonderful country, splendid in every way. But this felt uncomfortably like a backward step - like moving in with one's parents in middle age. They may be perfectly delightful people, but you just don't want to live with them any longer. Your life has moved on. I felt like that about a nation."

Recently, I visited in an old friend from high school. As teenagers, we had a lot in common. Our mutual love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, our crush on Ben Afleck and our shared habit of cutting class to watch tapings of MTV'sTotal Request Live in Times Square...These were the bonds that held teenage friendships together.


But about 20 minutes into our lunch in New York two weeks ago, it became clear that our lives had diverged in two completely opposite directions. And after playing catch-up and reminiscing about some of crazy shenanigans we'd gotten ourselves into back then, we found we had nothing to say. The friendship was familiar and comfortable, but at some point over the years it'd gone stale. It had expired.

And that's precisely how I feel about my relationship with America. It's expired and no matter how hard I try to breathe new life into it, it's too late. We're just too different.

Are you a Risk Taker?

According to Oprah Magazine, a spontaneous, risk-taking personality type is:

"Action oriented, curious, outgoing and lives for new experiences. You are drawn to risk-taking and aren't afraid to fail. Generally restless, you tend to job-hop or choose a field that offers constant novelty."

When I first stumbled across this in an article entitled "Who are you meant to be?" in this month's O magazine, I was floored. That last sentence completely stopped me in my tracks. It was like Wait a second. You mean to tell me that not only is my one-of-a-kind personality actually one of seven personality types but there are others like me out there, too?

I was simultaneously relieved to learn that I wasn't alone and dumbfounded that my unique, complicated and wholly incomprehensible inner motivations could be summed up so easily into three paragraphs. Apparently I'm not as original as I thought.

Curious, I started to research the risk-taking personality type and apparently not only is there a sub-species of risk-taking types walking (or free-falling, paragliding, rock climbing) the planet as I type, but they've been doing so since our ancestors first dared to venture out of the safety of their caves 100,000 years ago.


Photo courtesy of Science Daily

I can just imagine what my tribal role in life would've been back then. I'd probably be "Chief Food Taster", as in, "Here, try this weird looking plant and tell me if tastes poisonous, mmmkay?" or possibly "Chief Sketchy-Looking Cave Explorer", as in "Hey, do me a favor and scope out yonder cave for saber tooth tigers, will ya?"

For obvious reasons, the risk-takers of yore didn't live very long. But as Salvadore Maddi of the University of California-Davis pointed out, "It's better for one person to eat a poisonous fruit than for everybody," so they served a vital role in the evolution of mankind. And traces of that adventurous trait is still evident in people today.

Because apparently risk-taking is not only a personality trait but an inherited one. It's called the "high-risk gene" and through twin-studies, scientists have discovered that it's 60 percent genetic.




Which explains so much. It explains why, for example, although completely different an every other way, my brothers and I all share the same impulsive, irrational desire to repeatedly throw ourselves in harms way. Our methods may be different (they do it through cliff jumping, sky-diving, motor-cross racing and high stakes gambling and I do it through travel), but the driving force is the same. We hail from a long-line of risk-takers, starting with our unconventional, hippie, Harley Davidson-riding parents and going back to our great-grandparents who immigrated to the US 100 years ago.

The fact though that modern society has evolved in a way that we no longer need to spend our days hunting buffalo or outruning rhinos, makes some scientists wonder if the risk-taking gene has become obsolete. Or at worst, harmful.

Because the same gene that motivates high-risk personalities to bungee jump or move to Mongolia, also makes them prone to stranger sex, drug abuse, reckless driving and crime.As Maddi put it, healthy, well-adjusted people are "good at turning every day experiences into something interesting. My guess is that the safe-cracker and the mountain climber can't do that as well. They have to do something exciting to get a sense of vitality. It's the only way they have of getting away from the sense that life sucks."

He went on to say that high-risk takers "have a hard time deriving meaning and purpose from every day life." A psychologist from the university of Michigan, Randy Larsen, even went as far to state that risk-takers are "a little sociopathic".



Watching this video of people base-jumping off of cliffs superman style certainly makes me think that he may have a point. A very small one, but still. What do you think? Are risk-takers an inspiration to society or a hindrance?

Wanna read more? Check out:

Risk by Paul Roberts, Psychology Today.


Are you a Risk Taker? by Marvin Zuckerman, Psychology Today.

How Far Would You Go to be able to Fly for Free?

If you've been wondering where I've disappeared to these past few weeks, you can look no further than the International terminal at the airport in San Franicsco. It seems that lately I've been working so many 17 hour shifts (yes, that's 17 hours straight), that I've practically taken up permanent residence in the airport. I'm like Tom Hanks in the movie Terminal, only instead of camping out in some, cozy, abandoned concourse, I sleep on a make-shift bed (made out of two plastic chairs), in the employee break-room.

And if that sounds a bit extreme to you, well it's all par for the course when you work for an airline. Back when I first started, I used to think that my co-workers were crazy when they told me that they regularly did this. No way was a job worth sleeping on a pile of abandoned airplane magazines with the "Attention in the concourse. The airport is now at threat level orange..." announcement ringing in your ears all night. Free, unlimited air travel or not, my downtime was too important to give up for a job that barely pays over minimum wage.

But it's amazing how quickly your priorities change when a week-long trip to Colombia is dangled in front of your eyes. A chance to explore South America with one of my best friend's from Germany? Sure, I'll sign my life away. And then before I knew it, I was shivering in a sleeping bag in my car in the airport employee parking lot, trying to block out the smell of jet fuel and ignore the roar of the plane engines overhead that were so loud, they made the entire car vibrate.

Because when you only have four hours between when one shift ends and the other begins, wasting precious sleep time on the drive to and from work just seems silly. And sleeping on the carpeted floor in the supervisor's office and then paying $10 to use the airport shower starts to seem like a perfectly rational solution.

But as I found out the hard way, three hours of sleep is not enough to get you through a shift of canceled flights and irate passengers. And caffeinated beverages only get you so far...In the middle of my 10th work day in a row, I had a melt down.

At least that's the only way I can explain why I started crying at the ticket counter. Yes, I actually burst into tears, and right in the middle of checking in a passenger. I was so mortified, I just mumbled something about the bag tag printer being jammed and then ducked behind the counter to try to pull myself together. Unfortunately the problem with pep talks that begin with "Stop crying!" is that they just make you cry even harder.

Thankfully the man I was checking in pretended not to notice. He just smiled and looked sort of confused as I explained to him in a shaky voice, my eyes brimming with tears, that his flight would be departing at gate A12.

Afterwards, I excused myself, walked outside and sat on the long-term parking bus stop in a complete daze. I felt like I was 80 years old and suffering from arthritis. My bones and joints ached and my head was pounding. I had a chest cold and a fever and the only thing I'd consumed all day was three red bulls and a hand-full of raisins.

What the Hell was I doing to myself? I felt like I'd thrown myself into a war zone. I was a prisoner of war, held hostage by my job and subjected to mind games and deprived of sleep and adequate food (I'm sorry but stale sandwiches from the airport food court do not count). This was torture. And the most insane part of it was, was that I'd volunteered for it. I was driving myself crazy and all so that I'd be able to a week off and go to Colombia, of all places.



Sometimes I wonder if all the stress and insomnia is worth it. Perhaps it would be better if I just got a real job that paid more so that I could afford to purchase airfare like a normal person. Because with every airline competing so fiercely for business right now, flights are fairly inexpensive these days. Just last weekend, for example, I checked-in passengers who'd bought their tickets from San Francisco to New York online for only US $29.00.

The irony of the job is that while I have these wonderful travel benefits, I get paid too little to be able to enjoy them. Sure our flights are free, but that's only a small portion of the total cost of travel. When you factor in the added expense of hotels, dining out and sight-seeing, a weekend trip to anywhere can cost hundreds of dollars.

Furthermore, when you live in a city as expensive as San Francisco, the cost of living is so high that it takes nearly all of your pay-check just to be able to make rent. Most of my co-workers either live with their parents or else rely on a spouse or significant other's source of income to make ends meet.

It's for reasons like these that there are days when I fantasize about quitting; about trading in the free flights for a desk job somewhere. But then days like tomorrow stop me...because tomorrow I'm flying to Los Angeles for the day so that I can get a haircut...for no other reason because I can.

It's for reasons like this one that I love working for an airline.

I went to Colombia! And other news...

A lot has happened in the last three weeks.

1. I worked 112 hours over a 10 day period. Two of those days I worked 17 hours straight.

2. I bid farewell to my mid-twenties and celebrated my 27th birthday.

3. As a birthday present to myself, I went to Colombia for a week with one of my best friends, Kim.

4. In Colombia, we got pick-pocketed, horribly lost, stranded in a ghetto four hours from the capital and drank numerous cups of hot chocolate with chunks of cheese in it (which by the way, is my new favorite drink).

5. I also went clubbing, visited an underground cathedral made entirely of salt and bought 15 pairs of earrings for under USD $5.00.

6. I'm now officially in love with South America and can't wait to go back.

Here's a photo recap of the last seven days.

The Wanderlust Gene

Photo Source

Well, travel lovers everywhere...You can now come out of hiding. Because science has discovered that there's a reason behind your chronic restlessness and compulsive need for midnight road trips to Guatemala. You no longer need to feel ashamed about the excitement you feel over a new addition to your passport stamp collection or feel embarrassed about that lump in your throat that you experience each time you pick up the latest Travel + Leisure magazine.

Because you're not crazy, and moreover, you're not alone. Stanford has now confirmed that age-old "travel is in my blood" theory with the discovery of the 'travel gene'. Yep, your love for travel is not only a natural and innate genetic tendency but it could also mean that you hail from a long line of risk-taking travel-enthusiasts. You could very well be the great-great (to the millionth power) grandchild of the likes of Marco Polo or Ferdinand Magellon.




According to this book published by Princeton:

"There is now growing evidence that the behavioral traits which predispose some of us to risky and novelty-seeking behavior have a genetic basis. A recent book, American Mania, by a colleague, Peter Whybrow, director of UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, summarizes this evidence. He begins by noting that human migration is one major form of risky and novelty-seeking behavior. Only a few of our species left their ancestral home in the African savannahs and began that long walk to the ends of the earth which allowed homo sapiens to colonize the world. Who were these earliest migrants? It turns out they had a particular genetic profile. They had a higher percentage of an exploratory and novelty-seeking gene than those remaining behind."

The gene is called D4. And certain cultures display a higher percentage of the gene, which can be traced back to the earliest population migrations in Africa approximately ten to 20 thousand years ago. Apparently, the Chinese who migrated from Taiwan to South East Asia, for example, have a "greater percentage of D4-7 allele in the population than the aboriginal population of Taiwan who stayed behind". The same goes for the South Americans, particularly the Colombians. The theory is that those groups had to migrate (I.e., walk), the furthest when crossing from Asia to the Americas during the Ice Age, which would explain why the 'travel gene' is prevalent among South Americans today. Not surprisingly, (when you consider their history of isolationism), the travel gene is almost non-existent among the Japanese.



And apparently the travel gene is not strictly reserved for homo sapiens. It's also found in fish as well, specifically in the Stickleback fish; a small, bony, fresh-water fish that never likes to stay in one spot for long. According to a study conducted by the University of British Columbia, Sticklebacks possess an "inclination to move into different salinities – a sort of 'wanderlust gene,' if you will – instead of staying put and acclimatizing to the current salinity". Or as Dr. Rowan Barret put it, "they just like to go to new places".

So take heart in the fact that at least you have a friend in the fish world. And next time you have to explain to your mother why you feel it's of utmost importance that you put off grad school to volunteer in Thailand for three months, remember your ancestor Chris. I bet he must've had a frustrating time assuring Mrs. Columbus that the world wasn't flat and that it was a perfectly sane idea to sail to a "new world" to prove it.



What do you think? Is it possible to be genetically predisposed to travel? Or is science just grasping for explanations where there are none? What motivates you to travel?