Anthony Bourdain’s Greatest Lesson: Fuck Your Comfort Zone

It’s a weird, lonely feeling when one of your heroes dies. Suddenly you feel as if a part of yourself, quite possibly the most passionate part, has gone off and died with them. The pain feels as though your heart is slowly enclosed by thousands of tiny needles all at once. The feeling is even weirder if you never met your hero in real life. Despite the fact that I never met Anthony Bourdain, I think most of the world can agree that he never felt like a stranger. He felt like part of the family; he felt like a gruff and fierce version of ourselves.

I vividly remember the first time I fell in love with Anthony Bourdain.

I was preparing for my trip to Morocco and decided to expand my education by watching his Tangier episode of Parts Unknown. Everyone had been raving about the show and I thought it would provide a fresh perspective on Morocco that guide books and blogs couldn’t teach me.

So I put my computer away, I grabbed a glass of wine and clicked onto Netflix to see just what was so entrancing about this “bad boy” chef playing reporter. All it took was the opening line. Bourdain transported me into his world with an intrinsic quote from American writer and Moroccan dweller, Paul Bowles, for me to become hooked and discover my newest idol:

“I’ve always wanted to get as far away as possible from the place that I was born. Far both geographically and spiritually. To leave it behind…”

Was he talking to me? Did he just read into my goddamn soul? Never had I ever been touched in such a profound way as I was during that episode. He expressed a love of travel that was not just about pretty pictures and exploration. It was a darker side that not only showcased the tumultuous history of Tangier, but what it felt like to travel there as a tortured soul. The desperation that comes with looking for yourself in a different place and wildly running from something that you can’t even put a face to.

I binge watched Parts Unknown that night. I became obsessed with his ability to weave history with current events, culture and food. He did so in such a way that not only revealed his intellect and artistry, but with a direct, blunt attitude. No fucks given, if you will.  

Finally, I had to stop watching. There was something about him that reminded me a little too much of myself. Wanting to runaway, using distractions to escape your reality, his inherent need to use creativity as an outlet for pain. Little did I know at the time just how much pain he was in that he would eventually take his own life just 4 years later.

Anthony connected with people around the world in such a way that we all wanted to be explorers. We wanted to find our own adventures and make our own relationships with people we didn’t know. But aside from the various cuisine and the diverse cultures that Bourdain explored, each episode seemed to have one thing in common: leaving what you know behind and experiencing something outside of your comfort zone.

Being outside of your comfort zone means eating maggot fried rice or warthog anus (yes, he did actually eat those things), even if you think you’re going to be sick.

Being outside of your comfort zone means hearing someone else’s point of view that’s vastly different than your own.

Being outside of your comfort zone means traveling to a place that makes you scared.

Being outside of your comfort zone means letting go of everything you thought you knew and being okay with being out of control.

Anthony Bourdain taught us to embrace being out of control in a way that would make us, as humans, connect with one another. Lacking control was simply apart of life and you could choose to fight against it or ride with it. Bourdain chose to ride in the form of delicious food, extraordinary conversation and a lot of cursing.

He taught us about letting go and lacking control not just through his work, but by living this credo on a personal level. From his heroin addiction to his lack of financial stability to his travels to remote and dangerous places, Bourdain wasn’t one to play it safe. Constantly on the brink of self-destruction, so much of his life was out of his control. 

And that was okay. Because what we found in the chaos and the disorientation was something bigger than ourselves.

I suppose what makes this so painful is that this rings true for most of us. In our darkest hours we all feel the same thing: that we’re out of control and there’s nothing we can do about it. Perhaps that’s why we connect with Bourdain’s show on such a deep level. Comfort is our own worst enemy and it is the discomfort we feel through exploration that makes us feel a little bit better about this wild fucking ride we call life. Bourdain taught us that by choosing to leave what we know behind and going into parts unknown with openness and acceptance that we may finally feel peace and a sense of serenity. We may finally feel a connection that is greater than ourselves.

Devoted fans are posting some of his greatest quotes all over social media, which I too am about to do (because it just feels so damn right).

“As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”

What makes us who we are are the things that are beyond us, beyond our control. The only way to get through them is to relish in the discomfort. And we’ll be all the more fascinating, beautiful and compassionate for it.

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