Traveling has this strange effect of taking some of the mystery out of the world.

When we look at photos or videos of exotic places, architecture, foreign cultures, natural phenomena… it’s all in isolation. It’s through a lens, without context. When you experience it firsthand, everything changes. The Mona Lisa is tiny and surrounded by a mosh pit of study-abroaders with selfie sticks. Some Caribbean beaches really are that electrifyingly turquoise, but a stone’s throw away from the all-inclusive resort are sprawling miles of slums.

Everything is different in context.

And the more you see, the more you start to realize… it’s all the fucking same. The world is more or less the same, everywhere. Everywhere you go, everyone is struggling. Most people don’t have the resources to live a full, satisfying life. Sexism and misogyny and gender roles and unbearably dull heteronormativity saturate every nook, cranny, and crevice of the globe – not a single culture immune. Everywhere, women are secondary. Everywhere, children are born and grow up in poverty, likely to repeat the cycle as adults. Everywhere, animals are tortured for consumption (and only in rare cases is it out of necessity). Everywhere, capitalism (or worse) ensures inequality. Everywhere, there are patriarchal politicians dictating the fates of their communities.

Life, the world, existence – it isn’t inherently good with some bad sprinkled in – like you thought as a child. It’s mostly… neutral at best, a nightmare at worst.

It makes it harder and harder to believe in anything magical.

I always say the only thing I really want to see before I die is the discovery of extraterrestrial life. I think I just want to believe really, really badly that there could be a world out there better than ours.