George Santayana thought we can know only the way things appear, not the way things are.

To arrive somewhere new, let a stranger pick the destination.

A reflection on how stories mystify us with “that marvelous unknown.”

Take a dirt road through a small jungle to a monastery that’s off the guidebook.

Memories acquit muggers, misrecognize childhood homes, and embellish travel stories.

It’s harder to cross a bridge that’s not there than a language barrier that is.

Good conversation comes from not knowing what the other person's going to say.

“What then—given the beauty and terror of the vast cloud of unknowing—do we do?”