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He set out to walk around the world. After 27 years, his quest is nearly over

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128 points wallflower | 1 comments | 07 Dec 25 16:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.231s | source
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compounding_it ◴[12 Dec 25 06:21 UTC] No.46241382[source]▶
>The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.

I realize that a lot these days. People are not inherently so bad but greed is a nasty drug that has the potential to ruin the best.

When you have nothing to offer but kindness and compassion, it is very simple to see the humanity side of things in this world and it can feel really amazing.

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1. thinkingemote ◴[12 Dec 25 08:12 UTC] No.46241960[source]▶
There's a kind of stereotype we have of people that we have not met. The truth is that those groups of people that we think are nasty people are often kind and nice and full of empathy and compassion.

There is a kind of psychological pain of cognitive dissonance when we discover this "Wait, but they are meant to be ${group_member} why are they so nice and kind to me?". But one can only experience (e.g. via travelling) and learn from these experiences, it's hard to convey to others that the world really is __much__ more kinder and nicer than our preconceptions demand it should be.

It's easier and less painful to box away people into nice and not nice groups. And it's often most common to label people similar to ourselves in the nice group. It's a narrow view of the world. Travelling opens up our preconceptions of people, the opposite of a narrow view: travelling broadens the mind.