Elsewhere

I once made my Uber driver cry.

Last year, I was in the back of an Uber after a late night.

The driver asked where I was from.

I said, “The United States.”

He told me he didn’t particularly like Americans.

So we started talking.

I told him I didn’t think he actually had a problem with me.

I stated he had a problem with the version of America he had been shown.

The government.
The politics.
The headlines.
The clips online.

I explained that what we see on a screen can be completely different from what we experience in person.

You can form an entire opinion about a country, a culture, or a group of people without ever really knowing them.

Then you actually meet someone.

You hear their story.
You understand what matters to them.
You realize they want a lot of the same things you do.

A good life.
Good people around them.
Something to care about.
Someone to come home to.
A reason to feel excited about tomorrow.

He started crying.

That conversation has stayed with me ever since.

Because the more I travel and the more people I meet, the more I realize how much of the world we experience secondhand.

Through headlines.
Through algorithms.
Through someone else’s opinion.

But real life is different.

Real life is sitting across from someone you were told was different from you and realizing they really aren’t.

It’s sharing a table.
Having a conversation.
Walking through a place you’ve only ever seen online.
Letting experience change your mind.

That’s a big part of what Elsewhere means to me.

Not escaping the world.

Actually going into it.

Meeting people.
Trying things.
Seeing places for yourself.

Because real life is usually more complicated, more interesting, and more human than what we’re shown through a screen.

Don’t just consume the world.

Go experience it.