nietzsche & travel
The Gay Science is a collection of Nietzsche’s ideas, laid out in different passages which can be introspected just within themselves or woven across many to generate common themes. Passage 86 is titled “Of the theater” and presents Nietzsche’s critique on how folks typically use the theater (or in his view, “misuse”). He writes that this type of entertainment becomes a means to “the kind that is to intoxicate,” likening the theater and the consumption of art to narcotics. He argues that many people go to the theater because they are exhausted by life. They simply want stimulation or simulation without actually experiencing it themselves. The theater experience, in this view, is depicted as just being a means of seeking an easy substitute for real life experiences. The parallel to modern media is obvious - we’ve industrialized distraction. But the critique lands cleanly when you look at how people travel.
A lot of modern travel isn’t exploration, rather it becomes just an escape. Modern day life is still physically and emotionally tiring and many people want nothing more than to just put a pause on the day to day life they live. These manifest in many forms: ultra luxurious beach resort getaways to where you physically turn your brain off and lay in the sun drinking Pina Coladas to week long benders jumping from party to party. Even the curated “coffee shop, museum, cultural hotspot” itinerary becomes a checklist pulled from social media. All of it can be fun, but it hits the same nerve Nietzsche is pointing at: you’re consuming experience instead of living it.
I’ve travelled more than usual over the past year and change, and my experiences have varied. So, upon reading Nietzsche lambaste the theater, my inherent connection to travel makes sense. Coming back from my most recent trip, I did a full personal debrief and realized what I really enjoy about traveling isn’t the escape it provides from my more mundane life. Of course, I’ve done my fair share of the sins above (who doesn’t love traveling 20+ hours to attend circuit parties and astral project in other countries?), but at the end of the day, the question wasn’t just “Was this trip exciting?” but moreso: “How has this trip deepened the sense of how I view the world?”
During my travels, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and have folks show me around their hometowns. I’ve had the chance to not only get to know these people themselves on a closer level, but their friends and their families as well. Sure, getting a “local” to take you to their favorite “hidden gem restaurant” is great, but so is grabbing McDonald’s and crashing a hangout at their friend’s apartment. Even the more touristy expeditions take on meaning as they become backlit with personal heartfelt experiences. Riding bikes through Singapore’s well known areas while hearing my friend’s memories of growing up there, or exploring Alishan in Taiwan alongside another friend revisiting their childhood memories there - to me, these moments gave the places their meaning. Yes, of course - Marina Bay is impressive, and Alishan is literally magical in itself, but it’s the personal history that made them feel alive and made me much more connected to each place.
Debaucherous nights also take on a different kind of meaning through that same lens. Slightly intoxicated and perched in a tiny bar in Taipei - a local friend’s favorite spot - we watched a Taylor Swift themed drag show. Between Blank Space and You Belong With Me, she lip-synced Chinese songs and did crowd work entirely in Mandarin. Of course, I didn’t understand a lick of it, but my best friend traveling with me - a gay man who grew up in mainland China - was losing it. Watching it with him made the moment land in a completely different way. Objectively hilarious, but also heartfelt watching him see a drag performance in his native language for the first time.
In retrospect, what mattered wasn’t what landmarks I saw or even how “exciting” these trips overall were, but how much they changed how I see. Experiencing places through the lives of others turned travel from something I consume into something I participate in. Nietzsche’s point isn’t to reject theater - or, in my case argued here, travel - but to reject using them as substitutes for living. With that, it seems most people travel to escape their lives, but really I think the point is to return to them seeing more.