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Take something you don’t like and try to like it

(dynomight.net)
271 points surprisetalk | 3 comments | 02 Sep 25 12:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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donatj ◴[02 Sep 25 14:04 UTC] No.45103276[source]▶
I had something of a semi-intentional palate reset in my early twenties.

I had been a super picky eater basically my entire life, and getting me to try new foods was like pulling teeth. Then I spent a couple weeks traveling around Japan with some friends. I think it was in part genuinely wanting to immerse myself in the culture and in part not wanting to make myself appear fussy or annoying to a girl we were traveling with, but I forced myself to try things I would never have eaten state side. I found myself by the end of the trip actually pushing myself to try things... Even perhaps a little too far as the Takoyaki triggered my shellfish allergy. Nothing a bunch of Benadryl couldn't solve.

I'd come to Japan a picky eater though and left an adventurous one. I will at least try just about anything once.

This is something which twenty years later my parents still don't accept. "Oh, I thought you didn't eat salad" when I am halfway through my salad.

Mind you there are still things I did not like before that I still do not like. Ketchup tops the list.

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1. brailsafe ◴[02 Sep 25 21:04 UTC] No.45109034[source]▶
I think this is in-part the beauty of a certain type of travel in general, which if you do it before you form too many rigid biases, eventually sets a person apart from their grade school peers who just went full-send on their hometown or whatever. It's totally cliche, but if you just set yourself up to be forced to try and explore and enjoy different geographies, cities, food, or meet types of people you'd otherwise have avoided, then your default perspective is forever unlimited by the invisible ceiling or floor that you had before.

For me, it didn't even occur to me that it was normal to have trains/trams inside your city until I was in my twenties, and you don't even need to be NYC! Once I learned about it, my hometown pretty much lost whatever argument they might have had to get me to stay, and as soon as the option presented itself, I was out.

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2. jajko ◴[03 Sep 25 09:14 UTC] No.45113735[source]▶
Travel far and outside of comfort zone changes person, any person, for good. Prophet Mohammed is quoted roughly saying: "Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled".

There are non-trivial amount of people who discovered this on their own, got properly addicted and basically live in their western jobs to be able to afford as much travel ie in remote parts of south east Asia as possible. Some skipped that western job part altogether. I recently spent few weeks in remote parts of northern Sulawesi and the only westerners I kept meeting were of this bunch, with exactly same travel bug.

The problem is as you describe - you can't explain all this and much more to folks who stayed home or some variant of that. You can show photos and videos, tell stories but what that experience changed within you, thats your journey only.

Personally, this is by far the best way to spend money (plus gym membership).

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3. brailsafe ◴[03 Sep 25 22:06 UTC] No.45120894[source]▶
> There are non-trivial amount of people who discovered this on their own, got properly addicted and basically live in their western jobs to be able to afford as much travel ie in remote parts of south east Asia as possible.

I think it's a tricky balance, because the novelty can wear off, and by travelling all the time you do end up trading the other crucial component of life away for that novelty, which is some kind of roots and some kind of community.

Exploration and adventure is amazing, you can learn a lot about other cultures, but by not participating in your own nearly as much, you can end up ironically limiting yourself to shallow transient connections, depending on when and how long you do it for and where.

Atm I have basically zero interest anymore in living abroad for an extended time unless it offered me some unique environment for doing the outdoor stuff or other hobbies I enjoy, such that I'd be compelled away from my adopted home city that I'm quite fond of. But other than that, shorter travels that my outdoor hobbies direct me towards are usually amazing. So something like an extended backcountry hiking or climbing trip would be the type of thing that would excite me.