This I Believe: The Importance of Seeing the World

Inspired by the This I Believe series in which people share the “personal philosophies and core values that guide their daily lives,” this week I have decided to post on the core belief that has led me on the path to my future career and explains the topics I have chosen to discuss here in the blog. Many values and morals have led me through my life this far and contribute to why I have journeyed to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment. Among these include the importance of family, laughter, perseverance, and remaining true to yourself, but I have realized that behind all of these things there is one belief that has dominated all else in my life. This belief is in the importance of seeing the world, in experiencing different places, stories, and people. There are no greater lessons than the ones people learn when they are far from home seeing things with a fresh perspective. It is this belief that has led me into the world of entertainment, film, travel, and journalism, most of these being topics on which I have previously posted.

Adventure was always part of my life plan and from an early age I realized that traveling provided a myriad of opportunities and possibilities for it to be realized. I have never felt more alive than when I was staring out on a foreign coast, yet a close second comes when I am watching a great film or reading a compelling story that transports me to that coast. In the past few years I have come to realize a connection between my two passions of travel and storytelling; seeing the world can be experienced first hand and also through creative outlets. Great journalism and film have the same core value; a solid story of journeys and travels that few have experienced, but that millions can appreciate told by great storyteller that will make it memorable. Legendary newscaster Tom Brokaw (pictured above to the left) once said, “It’s all storytelling, you know. That’s what journalism is all about.” This realization and belief is what separates the greats from all the rest, and with these words in mind, I set out as a storyteller, traveling to find the best stories.

The first time I traveled on my own I was sixteen and journeyed the Mediterranean during the summer, meeting people and learning things I could never had imagined. I spent a week in the July heat with a young couple in Malta, a small country (shown below) between Italy and Africa. That summer Malta was experiencing a very serious drought and as temperatures reached to 114 degrees daily, things were very difficult. The girl I was staying with took me to the roof one day and showed me a small reserve tank of water that was all that was left for the whole neighborhood. It was an eye-opener and I wondered how these people could survive such a dry summer with only this tiny tank. Sensing my interest, she brought me with her one morning on her typical route before work, where she would visit some older couples in the neighborhood making sure they had enough water to drink and to do laundry and dishes. Watching all the creative ways the community had invented to do household chores and cook with little water, showed an incredible story of coming together in times of need. I had a hard time picturing the people in America joining like this, and I thought it was a story we could all learn from, for it contained inspiration, hardship, and true human compassion. A year later I read an article in a travel magazine about Malta and it told the same story of these beautiful citizens I had known, and it was then I knew that I wanted to become a storyteller. Just as legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg realized before me, “I’ve discovered I’ve got this preoccupation with ordinary people pursued by larger forces.”

A wonderful part of living in this modern world is how easy it is to traverse the continents and to experience all walks of life. Director Martin Scorsese (pictured below in center) said, “More than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.” While I argue that nothing can match the experience of traveling and exploring first hand, I agree with Scorsese that film offers the next best way to experience the world, allowing people far apart to witness each other’s journey and connect with those emotions that are universal. When someone watches a superb movie or reads a story in Condé Nast Traveler of a lost village, they are instantly transplanted to that world, suddenly in Africa running through the jungle or climbing through a blizzard in Alaska. There are so many stories few would ever have known without seeing them in film or reading about them in a magazine. I believe in seeing the world, in witnessing different people’s triumphs and tribulations. Finding these adventures can be as simple as opening the pages of a novel, venturing to a country far away, or heading down the block to the cinema, but regardless of where the story comes from, it is only in stepping outside of our own lives, that we see the real world.