BookMarks #101: Don’t Go There

Title: Don’t Go There: From Chernobyl to North Korea—one man’s quest to lose himself and find everyone else in the world’s strangest places

Author: Adam Fletcher

Genre: Non-fiction, Travel

Published: 2018

BookMarks

Don’t Go There – a travelogue which is collection of not so popular tourist destinations which the author has visited – a collection of places from across the globe, some of which have not so clear standing as well. Amongst all the places North Korea and its on-the-spot-guidance from “Dem two bruddas” stood out!

I like how the author has defined a functioning society with the following equation

People + Resources / Time = Functional Society

Those of us born as majority people will never know how much of a fight it is to live as a minority, not protected by the cushioning of statistics. The wrong group gets too certain about themselves, their beliefs, and their rights. They pull society’s levers and inflict the repercussions upon everyone else. History is what happens when ego meets happenstance.

Quite a succinct description of how everything has come to its current state and its ever evolving.

A line which stood out for me - Boredom is a Luxury Good. Don’t feel so safe and secure and bored that they actively go out looking for danger, just to feel more alive. A perfect description for everyone In this social media world bitten by the #wanderlust bug!

And a few more for the Bookmarks

• Being where you don’t belong frees you from any expectations about how things there are supposed to work, and, in turn, how you will react to them. A childlike naivety takes over.
• I guess we all do—recast ourselves in the stories of our lives, giving ourselves starring roles in our successes and minimising the role we play in our failures, working back from our actions to justifications,
• the only way you know that something has value is if you find yourself willing to make sacrifices for.

Quite an interesting and hilarious book. Seemingly funny yet also making a deep impression at the same time.

Previously on BookMarks: Peaky Blinders – The Real Story

P.S. The narrative also reminded me of another world adventure – A Bear, A Dog and A Kangaroo!