The Pull

I've been reading a lot of Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar.
He's the kind of travel writer that I would like to be; he describes everything so thoroughly that my surroundings fall away. I am the one in the train, on my way to Madras, Vientiane, Bangkok, Teheran, Bombay, etc. The only difference is that I bring my own experiences to this vision. I imagine, for example, that the smells in Madras are similar to the smells in Cambodia simply because that is all I know.
Or, I imagine that the beggars on the side of the railroad tracks, the ones that Theroux describes throughout India, are the same beggars that I saw in Phnom Penh; the child cradling his emaciated sister in his arms or the paraplegic begging for money outside of Psar Orussei.
This sort of thinking happens everyday. When my grandmother describes her back pain, I immediately feel the pain I once had when I fell from an apple tree. Or, when I hear that my sister is yelling at my baby nephew, I am once again huddled in a corner, squinting at her fist.
The experience isn't wholly cerebral, either. My head itches at the thought of lice, or my mouth sours at the sight of a man biting into a lemon. I can smell the jasmine as Theroux mentions it.
Reading, perhaps, is a practice in empathy. The only way in which I become Theroux is by drawing on my own experiences. Like matter, no thought is created. Snapshots from life are merely reassembled so that we may fit ourselves into other people's lives. How ironic that something that seems megalomaniacal is a source of connection to others.
Travel writing, then, must also be a practice in empathy.  How can one describe the "other" without wearing a different perspective? Like Theroux, good travel writers describe, ruminate, but only occasionally confess. The goal is not to talk about oneself. The writing should be outside of the body, encompassing the experiences of all others.
But my only tool is the life that I have led.
So, when pen points to paper, a paradox takes place; a journey away via a journey within.