 There are a number of reasons there's great value in traveling and seeing the world. You know, maybe the first one to come to my mind is that we've talked about this in the past, the importance of art, and you're just going to be exposed to so much, particularly if you travel in Europe. And this is the reason why I'd say if you haven't traveled much in your life, and haven't really left the United States, the first place to go is Europe, is there is so much good art to be seen. There is so much great art that you can see. And look, you can look at art on the computer screen, you can get a poster, but there's nothing like the experience of seeing great art in person. I think quite like the first time, second time, third time, tenth time, it doesn't really matter of walking into the academia in Florence and taking the turn into the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, there stands Michelangelo's David in all his amazing magnificence. And it's just not the same as the David at the, I don't know, if you see this palace in Vegas or the David that's outside in Florence or anywhere else. It's just, it's just magnificent and it's awe inspiring, and it gives you a sense of grandeur and heroism, and it gives you energy, energy to combat almost anything. So it's seeing it in person is just stunning. You can see photographs, you can see posters, it doesn't match it. It's seeing the winged victory at the top of the staircase at the Louvre. Just the size of it, the dynamism of it, the movement that they've managed to put into stone is stunning, or to see Michelangelo as dying slave at the Louvre. So one of the first things I'd encourage everybody to do is take some art tours. Italy and France come to mind as the primary places to go. Rome, Florence in Italy and Paris in France, and the Louvre is magnificent, the Dorset is magnificent, the museums in Rome, any church you walk into in Rome, any little dinky church anyway, is going to have some magnificent paintings that are awe inspiring and fun to see. And then there are museums in every major European capital, there are some great museums in London, there are some good museums in Germany, there are some good museums in Madrid, in Spain, and of course in Amsterdam you've got the Rembrandts and the Vermeers. So one reason to go travel is to go see the great cultural achievements of western civilization. And while we'll talk about going to Asia and to other places around the world, to Africa and so on, the first priority in my book is always Europe. Now I've been pretty much every country in Europe, I mean I've got maybe three countries, well maybe five countries that I haven't been to that don't have any particularly appeal necessarily, so I think I haven't been to Belarus, probably not going given its regime there, I haven't been to Moldova, I haven't been to Slovenia, I mean to Slovakia but not Slovenia, so I intend to go to Slovenia, I haven't been to Bosnia, I'm sure I'll be in Bosnia, I'm sure I'll be in Slovenia, but I've been to pretty much every other European country. I've tried to go to museums and all of them and yeah, there's just so much to see and add to the museums, architecture and you know the just beauty of the cities themselves, the layout, the way they're placed and so go see the achievements of western civilization and those achievements are the cities, those achievements are the buildings, the architecture, for example Prague is you know down the old city, it's just this magnificent art deco, you know it was built in the late 19th century, early 20th century, it's got these beautiful buildings with sculptures on top of them, just magnificent and beautiful in an atmosphere and a sense of life and a lot of Europe was like that and what happened was Prague is one of the few cities that the Nazis did not manage to blow up so when they were treated that actually bombed the bridges and bombed some of the buildings had explosives and they managed to, what do you call it, to stop them from exploding and save the city and the allies did not bomb Prague so Prague came out of World War II relatively unscathed so as compared to for example I know that I just realized when I was in Tokyo I realized this, I'd realized this before but every time I go to Tokyo I realize this almost every single building in Tokyo, almost every single building certainly with exception of the Empress Palace but outside of the Empress Palace and a few other places here and there almost every single building in Tokyo is new, new in terms of its post-World War II and that's because during World War II the allies basically flattened the city there was nothing left there, they fire bombed Tokyo and Tokyo was annihilated it was destroyed, it was like a nuclear bomb had gone off in it, although it hadn't but there was the equivalent of that because they had systematically constantly bombed it and particularly fire bombed it, the same as through a place like Dresden and other cities in Germany that were just destroyed during World War II and therefore everything in them is new so the artwork, the buildings and then of course all of that leads to something else that you get to experience when you travel in a sense first hand you get to experience the context of history that is you get to experience what is kind of the so for example you get to experience a city that didn't exist and it was destroyed in 1945 and suddenly you know look at it so that recalls a history, a context, a certain history about what was going on in the war but it also brings to the forefront all the achievements that have happened since then all the growth and all the success and that gives you a reality you can see those graphs about economic growth you can see graphs about how poor we used to be and how rich we are today traveling gives you a real sense of what that looks like and what wealth looks like and what going from nothing to something looks like it concretizes all of that economic achievement, all of the cultural achievement that we learned when we say western civilization is the great civilization in human history what does that even mean? how do you know what that is? well one of the ways you know it is by going and actually seeing it and actually experiencing it so it's you get a sense of all the abstract ideas and the stories you hear and the history you hear you get it in many ways concretized for you you get to see the Medici Palace, you get to see where Michelangelo worked and there is an almost value in that, there is an almost pleasure in that satisfaction in that and again a concretization of stories and ideas that you might have heard, that people might talk about, that you might have read in a book and now in front of you and you are actually there so it's super interesting and exciting to actually be in those places one of the things I love about London is you can walk all over London and you walk in the different neighborhoods and different neighborhoods are like from different centuries and you can experience buildings from those centuries you can imagine a little bit at least London has changed a lot over the centuries you can imagine a little bit what life was like really London is a testament to the 19th century onwards and the wealth that was created in England during the 19th and 20th centuries and to this day it's the 21st century and how it manifested in the cities I think I've got a question from Richard for $100 so I'll jump in and take it's relevant to the topic this is Scott's question I guess not Richard's question it does that for you I guess this refers to David, Michelangelo David it does that for you and maybe most people but it doesn't necessarily mean their values are off if something else inspires them more yeah I mean what inspires you relatively speaking is an issue of your own sense of life and your own set of values now that is not so there certainly is optionality there but up to a limit if what you're telling me is yeah David's okay what really inspires you is Kandinsky then there's something wrong with you or Jason Pollock or I don't know or anyone of the modern artists then there's something weird you can make judgments about people based on the art they like art is a reflection of your values and you can tell a lot about somebody's psychology you can tell a lot about somebody's values, hierarchy based on the art that they like and I don't know could I be friends with somebody who didn't like Michelangelo's David I don't know but I know I know people who like other sculptures more than they like Michelangelo's David because even within Michelangelo I think Lena Peacock's favorite sculpture is the dying slave Michelangelo's dying slave which is in the Louvre and I understand why and I love the dying slave but you know I by far prefer the David even though I completely understand what it is that Lena likes about dying slave you know and so I'm not referring to any particular particular sculpture, particular painting, particular I mean for me being in front of the David is one of the great experiences of life and if there are other works of art and on the other hand Scott says I dig rock and roll if your aesthetic experience is limited to rock and roll then you're missing out in life and I've said this before on your Runs Rules for Life you're missing out, you've got too narrow a scope of aesthetic a scope you're missing out on huge possibilities in terms of values you should broaden your horizons you should learn to appreciate sculpture and painting and literature and classical music and other things and one of the ways to do that is to go and see the actual artworks and actually experience them so many people have way too narrow and again I think Americans because of where it is you know many people because of the way they grew up because of the values they were exposed to because they haven't been taught how to relate to other forms of art have a way too narrow view of aesthetics and art and so on and that's too bad for them so my call to you is broaden those horizons you know experience new things and you know one of the things I would do is if you go for the first time to Italy is go on a tour, get a guide get a guide who will explain some of the artwork explain their historical context, explain what they do so first time go in and just scan and get a sense and experience kind of in a broad sense what is going on and then maybe go a second time and just for contemplation just to look at the artwork and see what you like and what you don't like but it's good to get that experience of understanding the artwork, understanding its historical context and understanding what's going on in it because it's a new form and it's hard to appreciate something new it's great to go to some art lectures some art history lectures you would get immense value out of those I mean again I've talked about this in the past about the benefits of art and the benefits of surrounding yourself with great art but also the benefits of experiencing great art and therefore widening your horizons and widening your knowledge when it comes to art don't just go and say I'm only going to look at what I like today try to why is Rembrandt admire it so much why is Vermeer admire it so much why is Raphael admire it so much try to get an appreciation at least to understand why in context the art historian the professional professional aesthetician appreciates who they appreciate and maybe you will learn to like them too maybe not but maybe you will learn to like them too so this is my advice to you I mean some people want to stay narrow minded and they want to only experience what they know and they want to only do what's comfortable and they don't want to stretch their minds and they don't want to stretch their experiences and they don't want to try anything beyond the scope of their narrow little world and that's not living as I define it and this is again the beauty of travel it stretches you it exposes you to new things it pushes you it gives you the opportunity to experience life at its fullest and certainly the aesthetic experiences and again a full appreciation of the achievements of western civilization will allow you to then have much more confidence in defending western civilization when we go out there and say western civilization is great, you'll know what you're talking about so many people have no clue western civilization means what to them what are they defending so many people are limited in the scope to example just to politics but western civilization is a lot more than politics a lot more than politics and the pleasure the beauty of being in Athens let's say and not only seeing the great achievements the great monuments that the Athenians have left us the great architecture the great buildings and again you have to understand them in the historical context the Colosseum and everything and then going to the art museum and seeing all the magnificent sculptures from ancient Greece and the pottery and on all of that it's just amazing and stunning and again you get a firsthand appreciation for their achievements in philosophy but those achievements and philosophy which we've all read about we've all studied now applied to actual life to existence you get a sense of what it was like to be in the Athenian market and what it was a sense of to be wealthy in Athens but also the aesthetic beauty once you get that you get a much greater appreciation for what it means to say western civilization what it means to defend western civilization but then there's also just the pleasure and the emotional satisfaction and just to say I'm walking I'm walking in the streets that Aristotle walked in you know you can go today to where the academia was where Aristotle school was and you can see kind of at least the ground where the ruins of what used to be the buildings of the academia and you can see Aristotle taught here how cool is that you can go to Plato's Academy I mean you can you get a sense of history that is really hard to get without actually traveling there or being there one of my favorite places to be in just because it was so educational and was Pompeii Pompeii is is south of Naples at the bottom of the volcano and what happened in Pompeii is the volcano erupted and it basically covered the city and it preserved it for 2000 years so we now excavated and there's the city and it's frozen in time it's exactly the way it was 2000 years ago preserved by the lava from the volcano and you can see what life was like and it's truly stunning because suddenly you realize the kind of achievements that the Romans had and both engineering achievements which we knew somewhat about but here you can see them in person you can see things like the fact that they had pipes with running water in the taps they literally had taps the fact that they had multi-story buildings something that Europe didn't have for a thousand years after that you know the fact their attitude towards sex which is the same thing in Ephesus you can see signage in the pavement to the brothel right so just little elements like that give you a completely different sense of what life was like back then and it gives you a concrete sense of the history it adds so much to the study of history to the reading of books now you're literally standing in the place Ephesus is in Turkey but it was an ancient Greek city in Turkey and it's they say it's the best preserved Greek ruins from classical Greeks so you really get a sense again of what a town city was laid out was like the kind of buildings the scale of the buildings the streets where the sculptures were you know streets in ancient Greece were lined with sculptures you know the main boulevards just imagine that and the sculptures were not just in in bronze many of them were bronze but they were colored they were painted so it's unbelievably colorful and a celebration of the human body the celebration of human life just a magnificence as compared to when you walk today in a modern street and if you see any kind of sculpture it's modern mangled metal that means nothing and does nothing to anybody so you know just fascinating and interesting if you go to Israel of course Israel is filled with history modern history ancient history and you can walk among the ruins and where history where these amazing things happened that helped shape what we know today as western civilization so I think what traveling particularly I would say in Europe and parts of the Mediterranean I would include Israel in that maybe even Egypt is you really get a sense of the scope of western civilization you get a sense of the rise and decline you can go and see Middle Ages villages Middle Ages ruins and compares them to what was before Rome and what came afterwards you really get a concretized sense of the scope and scale and historical changes that have happened over time so and it's so easy to go now again I return to my original point it's so easy to travel it's so easy to get on a flight we can all afford it almost everybody can afford it travel anyway and to see these these amazing fantastic you know fantastic testaments to human achievements and to grandeur so travel go out and see the world and start as I said with Europe and the Mediterranean but in the end is the most important second is kind of the history the importance of history and third the culture of the different places I mean it's so much fun to go and see an opera in an opera house in Italy you know or to just experience the way people behave in different countries the way they talk to one another experience the food in different countries just experience the way people live it's just you know being exposed to things that are different things that you're not used to allows you to appreciate the good in your own culture but allows you also to say huh maybe that's better than my own culture you know it allows you to have an opportunity to pick and choose everything that the world has to offer the best and the things that are most that you're going to enjoy the most thank you for listening or watching the Iranbrook show if you'd like to support the show we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me you get value from listening you get value from watching show your appreciation you can do that by going to Iranbrookshow.com by going to Patreon and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those channels also if you'd like to see the Iranbrook show grow please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live and for those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show thank you I very much appreciate it