The idea isn’t to follow Anthony Bourdain around and try to ride his coattails or get attention from his audience. However, I genuinely think it’s worth revisiting the places, and as much as possible, the people, who Tony featured and ask them what has changed since we last heard from them. What can we learn from their experience of how the world is changing? Perhaps what can learn about how to help it change for the better (or at least try to stop or slow the things that are changing for the worse). Equally important, I hope to use his work as an inspiration to create new contributions of mine own in whatever small way I am capable.
To be clear- I didn’t know him, I don’t know any of the people who worked with him. I never even met him or saw him appear in person anywhere. To be honest, I didn’t even know a thing about him until he died. I had only seen the commercials on CNN and my first response was, “oh look, another arrogant white guy” and so I never watched the show. When the news broke about his death, I was at a very dark place in my life– I actively wanted to kill myself. Naturally, I was drawn to find out who this person was, and what happened.
What I found was a man who was living essentially the live I had dreamed of as a child. And he was smart, funny, and just fucking cool. My initial snap judgement couldn’t have been more wrong. That reminded me that I knew better than to believe my own bullshit, I had forgotten to always keep questioning my own assumptions.
It also re-lit a spark inside me. Someone can have a life like that. Someone as flawed and as tortured by their past as my me. Rather than be discouraged by him ultimately losing to his darkness, I drew inspiration. It made me start to think about what I wanted to do with my future.
At the time, I was feeling very trapped in a life I wasn’t happy in. I wasn’t making others happy, and that was the worst feeling of all— that is the opposite of who and what I wanted to be in the world.
It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t quick. It wasn’t pretty. I messed a lot of things up along the way. I did more damage than good for far too long. But I realize in retrospect that that started me on a long, painful path of transforming my life.
I spent years making little progress, often doing nothing about it but reading, researching, and dreaming. However, when eventually life forced my circumstances to change– when I lost everything– my response was to say, “fuck it”, and I decided I would just go ahead and live the life I wanted. A lot has changed very quickly since that point, but there were years of gestation and healing that led to that.I am incredibly grateful to so many people, therapists, counselors, friends, family, colleagues, who played a role in that. Probably a lot of you have no idea what that was, and may even be surprised to find out how you did so.
Now I hope I can be a light for someone else, even if it’s just one person. Because the world is hard. It’s cold. It’s lonely too much of the time. Capitalism has done everything to shatter our relationships, to divorce us from the things that matter, that don’t make money for those at the top. We have to come together in mutual aid, including through inspiration, to try to make our way together in this world.
I don’t want this to be about me (not just me). My ultimate vision is for this to be a platform, a community. A place where any of you can contribute your own adventures and updates. If you’re interested, let me know.
If you are struggling yourself with mental health by the way, don’r do it alone. We all meed help sometimes, it is not a sign of weakness— it’s being realistic. If you are in crisis and aren’t sure where to turn, here’s a list of resources: https://www.mentalhealth.com/emergency
.jpg)
