Dearest Rachel –
I don’t know why – I never do, because no one can understand dream logic once they’re awake – but last night saw me hitchhiking across Canada, of all places. It was during their football season (which ended several weeks ago in real life, so the timing of this dream is a bit odd, to say the least), and I was crisscrossing the country to watch a game in each stadium, from Montreal to Vancouver, over the course of a season.
In fairness, that’s actually a pretty doable goal for a fan of the sport; unlike down here, where it would be literally impossible to visit thirty venues over the course of sixteen or seventeen weeks. Indeed, one could probably visit each CFL stadium twice in a season, if one was so determined. Moreover, the cities (with the exception of Edmonton, which is a bit of a detour north) are all strung out along the Trans-Canadian Highway, meaning that the trip from place to place would be a fairly straightforward process, if a little long, especially out west. But then, that’s not so much of a problem when the games are spread out with a week between them, just like in the American version of the game (although if you wanted to hit one place on Friday and another on Saturday, that would be a challenge).
In the dream, however, I seemed to be dealing with a whole other challenge on top of that; that of trying to find transportation. You would think that, living on the same continent, it would be a simple matter for me to just drive up there, and then cover the length and breadth of the country, from east to west, more or less. Of course, that’s not how dreams work; for whatever reason, I was stuck having to hitchhike from one city to another, meeting people along the way and interacting with them. In keeping with the stereotype, everyone was friendly and accommodating, but I was warned that, in certain places, I really shouldn’t be trying this; either it was straight-up illegal, or just situationally dangerous.
“Well, I mean… I gotta get from here to there, so… what do you suggest I do?”
At least one of the folks who were willing to pick me up were also willing to offer me advice on the matter. “Oh, I’m not sayin’ you can’t do it; you just gotta keep your head down and keep your mouth shut.”
Even upon waking up, that sounds like good advice to the would-be traveler – or any human, for that matter. The trouble is, we’re perpetually torn between wanting to not call attention to ourselves (thereby running afoul of either the law or lawbreakers) and wanting to call attention to ourselves (“Look at me! I’m in thus-and-such a place! Isn’t that something?”). We want it both ways – wealth, fame and safety – and we obviously can’t have it that way.
Oh, in certain places, you can manage to have all three at once, although in order to have that last thing, there has to be a certain parity regarding the second. Consider Beverly Hills as an example; according to its reputation, everyone there is famous, to one degree or another, and thus less likely to be a threat to their neighbors, thereby allowing all of them to live in a tentative sort of harmony. But when everybody in an area is famous, is anybody there really famous? No one actually gets to stand out there; it’s the relative equality that keeps the peace.
If an alleged ‘famous’ person wants to truly bask in their fame, they have to leave their cloistered gated community and mingle with the hoi polloi, thereby allowing themselves to soak in the adulation that the wider world offers them. But in order to do that, they have to surrender a measure of their safety, because while they are known by all (at least, as far as they’re aware), they’re not liked by all. Envy is a dangerous beast, and one never knows who out there might harbor enough of it to do them harm.
In order to mitigate against that, then, one could surrender a certain amount of wealth to regain the safety they’ve left behind. Celebrities routinely hire bodyguards so that the general public can’t get close enough to hurt them, or even touch them. It’s still a sacrifice – and of more than money, as I’ll explain later – but it seems to be generally accepted as the price of fame, which, once acquired, can’t be returned for regrets, anyway.
None of which applies to myself, yourself, or anyone reading over your shoulder, honey. The famous are few by design and definition; we literally can’t all be famous, as names and faces slip our mind once there are to many of them to keep track of. But we still have to juggle the desire to be known against the desire to be safe against the desire to get out there and see the world…
…which is yet another contradictory pull in people’s lives. We want to be able to go where we want to, when we want to; it’s part of the whole concept of freedom, which certain cultures (*cough* Americans *cough*) value above just about everything else. But the thing is, we’re not allowed that kind of freedom while out and about. There are places that just don’t feel safe – you remember that detour en route to the island where we picked up some fantastic fried seafood from a joint in Indiana that had more bulletproof plexiglass than the average bank. Even as we enjoyed their wares, we drove away thinking that we just didn’t belong there, which is a pity, because they made some great food.
Likewise, some places aren’t the sort you can just pick up and go there on a whim – as Boromir put it, “one does not simply walk into Mordor”; although who would want to go there? Still, some destinations require a fair amount of preparation before showing up, which is another case of being antithetical to freedom. That being said, this is that other cost I alluded to earlier about fame – celebrities have to organize their entourage every time they want to leave their house, both out of safety and probably due to studio requirements. It’s an odd sort of imprisonment, but it is one, to a certain extent.
For us little people, though, travel abroad can be akin to that. Not only does one have to make preparations (so that you have everything you need should anything untoward happen), but there’s the question of how the locals will regard you. If they see you as a rich tourist, then you have to avoid places where malefactors would take advantage of you – although, counterintuitively, when you’re making your way through certain cities, you can get away with not being seen at all, as long as you follow my Canadian driver’s advice to “keep your head down and keep your mouth shut.”
It’s hard to do so, though, sometimes; you see something that’s unfamiliar, and can’t help reacting to it in some way. Normally, these reactions are innocuous enough, but you never really know in a strange place. You might remember the cautionary tale Otto Warmbier, and his attempt to take home a North Korean propaganda poster as a souvenir, for which he basically paid with his life. In my own experience, when I’ve been in Israel and heard the call to prayer from one minaret or another, I can’t help but think that it sounds very much like Charlie Brown’s principal. I can’t say that, though, because that will offend somebody and get me into trouble – and I don’t want to know what and how much trouble I’m talking about.
The fact that we can’t say something, however, offends our American sensibilities. We think we should be able to say what we want when we want, just like we should have the freedom to go where we want when we want. But our rules don’t apply everywhere; in fact, they rarely apply anywhere else but here – and sometimes not even here. Try insulting a burly, overserved drunk, and you’ll know what I mean; he may get arrested for what he does to you, but you’ve still had it done to you. We have the freedom to speak, yes, but exercising certain freedoms does come with their consequences.
So, in an effort to avoid those consequences, I’d ask you to continue to keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 