Maybe by Bread I Mean Cookie

As I was walking down Pearl from our new home, I listened to Ira Glass & David Sedaris circa 2006, talking about the lack of true appeal in Paris, or, the blandness of a tourist's ideas on what one should do as a tourist. They were prompted by the notion that millions of people travel to France each year with the idea that they have to see museums; if they didn't that it would be almost blasphemy. It struck them as odd that a person who doesn't visit museums at home would find it so important to visit them in a different country, following this with the statement: "Who looks back and remembers standing in front of a picture anyway?" One of the things I take away from it is that tourists seldom see the parts of a city that make it truly different from home - in Sedaris' case of living in Paris - a shop that makes paper mache body parts.
Who cares if it's typical of tourism, at least people are removing themselves from routine and entering forms of culture. The reason why someone who won't go or think to go to a museum at home, but finds it impertinent to in a new city is because to go to one at home would be too easy. It's too close to them, and besides, "it'll always be there." It's like living close to family and never finding time to sit down and eat with them. But then you move away and you talk with them more than you ever had and you look forward to the time you can sit down to eat with them again. At least a tourist moves in a direction that provides images otherwise unseen. The real problem is not sheep-tourism, or Paris and it's typical locales of interest, it's that we have these thick ideas that we have to leave the home in order to find something new or to be something new. For two, we wait forever to go. For three, a museum can mean something different than standing in front of a picture.

A couple passionate people have told me that I don't need to travel to find what I'm looking for, that I can find inspiration and culture in the U.S.. I agree in the way that if I open my eyes and mind to this, I could find what I'm looking for. But, I also wonder, why the heck is it important to them to tear down my ideals in travel or touring? A. says that if I could go and experience the traveling I consider so important, that I would understand that it isn't so glamorous and important after all. I think he says this not so much to break down my ideals, but to offer a solution to my constant (seeming?) complaints of needing travel, of needing to explore. I think it's obvious that it's not something I can do right now, and in his way he offered a solution for me to cease feeling remorse over it. But it's his experience. Sometimes leaving reminds you how much you have.

I think you can find what you're looking for right here. But if you have ideas on larger things in different places, then you might never find what you're looking for right here. And the only way to dispel the clouded theory is to embark upon it, or live it up almost distractedly from where you are.