Adventurer's Remorse/I Still Love Porn

My Friends,
   So I took a trip around the world and all anyone asks me about is the guy who jerked off beside me on the train.  That is the sum total of my meanderings de la monde.  Apparently the most eventful thing that can happen to you in the world is to have a quasi-homeless dude tug his crank beside you.  It bugs me but its also partly my fault; after all, I didn't have to make it known that this event happened.  Yet somehow I knew it would make a good story.  Little did I know how right I was.
   Other experiences which may have had a more profound impact on me just don't translate well into storytelling on the blog or around the lunch-table at work.  So as an easy out I just told the story I knew would elicit the desired response (mirth).  And to my credit I have got pretty good at telling the story and its much better than it originally was.

I always wanted the story of "The Masturbator on The Train" to have a dewback in the background.  And now, with "The Masturbator on The Train: Special Edition", its finally there.

   As much as I hate having my adventure reduced to one (sordid) incident, this isn't even the first time its happened.  For example, I spent a summer out in B.C. a few years back and although it was in many ways an experience whose greater effect on me cannot be encapsulated in words, when the topic of B.C. comes up, I inevitably talk about the size of the salmon I caught and "the Spirit Bear"... 

...which I saw.

Ditto for two months of backpacking in Australia.  Being in the outback was an experience which defies words, but if anyone asks I will almost certainly reference getting stung by a scorpion.  

Its a cool story, after all  

   Finally, my time in my other favourite desert, Afghanistan, is typically summed up with a story about the heat or the IED we drove over that didn't blow up because it was water-logged.  Its unfortunate that our most important experiences must be reduced/distilled to the most communicable/relatable stories.  The more esoteric and meaningful aspects of our lives and experiences are either too difficult to communicate or not palatable to others.  Like if I'm at work shooting shit the shit with the boys about travel, am I more likely to bring up the beautiful mixture of feelings I felt while on the road; happiness to be free pursuing what was my highest aspiration yet also sadness for all that I had left behind, or will I bring up the topless beach I went to in Spain? (Protip: I'll prolly bring up the story with boobies in it)

   Why does it have to be like this?  I think its a result of the society we live in; we tend to value the whole less than the interesting/marketable/sexy (i.e. exploitable) parts.  This is why we tell anecdotes instead of sharing feelings. This is why people visit resorts and not the rest of the country the resort is in.  This is why Hustler et al. show extreme close-ups of women spreading their vaginas.  

This is actually a brilliant cover

   Its just that, pornographic; we like to reduce things to their constituent parts for ease of consumption.  Yet something qualitative is most certainly lost in the process.  When you're bombarded with all these images and no discernment or thought is required on your part, you will inevitably devalue what you are being bombarded with.  I don't blame you, you get bored.  

   Everything (people, products, and our most cherished experiences) is for sale in our society, but people don't want the cow, the woman, or the life experience.  What they want, respectively, is the filet, the vagina or the sleazy story about public masturbation.

Stay Thirsty,

-Andre Guantanamo