The reason…

Why am I doing this trip? This is a simple question with a line of several simple answers. Why not? I need to, and let's say who wouldn't wanna see all these sites I plan to? These are the more surface level reasons why I am planning this trip. To cut to the core of it, how do you know you have eaten the best tasting piece of pie if you haven't tried them all? I know I have lived a privileged life here in the United States. I also worked hard for the life I have now.

Warren Buffet one of my idols perhaps puts it best… "Suppose a genie comes to you twenty four hours before you're born and asks you to design the world into which you are going to be born - the social rules, the political rules, and so on. The catch is that you have to go to a barrel of six billion tickets, and pick one at random. The ticket identifies what you will be when you enter this world, for example, rich or poor, black or white, retarded or bright, male or female. Given the "randomness" of this trait assigning process, what kind of world would you want to design?"

The great "Ovarian lottery" I realize I could have been born into any third world country into a poor family and never seen the likes of a public education or technology, but I wasn't. I believe that my life here in the United States has been a privileged one and for the better part of twenty five years I have assimilated to the culture of growing up in a middle class family. How do I know that this is the best life or best culture for me if this is the only one I have lived?

I want to explore other cultures choose a couple of random lottery tickets and see what life is like for some of the other 6,000,000,000 people. What is it like to be poor living in India? Being an Ethiopian living on pennies a day? Living in dense city centers like London, Mumbai, and Hong Kong? Being a vineyard worker in France? Etc. the list could go on for a year or so I hope….