I No Longer Read Travel Books

"I want firsthand knowledge of everything, not fiction, intimate experience only. Whatever takes place, even a crime I read about, I can't take an interest in, because I already knew the criminal. I may have talked with him all night at a bar. He had confessed what he intended to do. When Henry wants me to go and see an actress in a play, she was a friend of mine at school. I lived at the home of the painter who suddenly becomes a celebrity. I am always inside where it first happens. I loved a revolutionist. I nursed his discarded mistress who later committed suicide. I don't care for films, newspapers, 'reportages,' the radio. I only want to be involved while it is being lived." --June Miller

This is a memo to myself and actually, anyone who reads blogs:

I no longer read travel books.
To live vicariously through something or someone else, whether that be a friend, a travel book, a news report, a postcard or a film, is to not live at all. You may say that it is the second best thing to the actual thing, but what is the actual thing anyway? When I was living the most, I watched the least films. I love films but they are just images of fantasies of other people. Throw away your armchair and travel in the place you live. Walk. Talk to people on the streets. Eat up life, consume life. They may free you and you may escape life for a while, but life always catches up. Instead of trying to outrun life by consuming fictions, wouldn't it be better to catch up with your dreams?