The Art Of Becoming No One

 I grew up thinking I was supposed to become someone.

Not just a person, an important person. Get good grades. Get into a good school. Get a good job. Become good at something.
And then, if I really played my cards right, I’d get a house, a car, maybe a balcony with plants I’d forget to water, and enough money to pretend I was fulfilled.

That was the idea, anyway.

And to be fair, I did a decent job of following the script. I studied hard. I earned degrees. I got a PhD, for God’s sake. I did the thing. And for a while, that made me feel like I mattered. Like I was building something real.

Like I was someone.

Then I found myself walking alone on a dusty road in some remote part of South-East Asia, wearing a sweaty T-shirt, a broken flip-flop, and the sudden realization that no one cares.
Not in a rude way. Just… genuinely, absolutely, beautifully indifferent.

The guy selling grilled bananas didn’t ask about my thesis topic. The woman stirring soup into plastic bags didn’t blink at my fancy backpack. No one clapped when I entered the bus station with my elite Western sense of personal space and mild entitlement.

I was just another sweaty foreigner in their way.
And that’s when it hit me: I was no one here.
And weirdly, it felt… kind of right.

Back home, there’s a silent competition baked into everything. Maybe that was just how I was raised, as an only child, but I think it’s more general than that. Be better. Earn more. Look good. Keep score.

We’re trained to accumulate identity like achievement badges: wealth, abs, fast car. You think you’re impressive because you’ve read books, or have followers on social media, or a six-pack you’re very humble about.

But out here? None of that follows you.
You realize no one gives a damn, not because people are unkind, but because they’re busy living their actual lives. Lives that don’t revolve around your presence.

And if they don’t smile back? It’s not hostility.

It’s probably just life. Or maybe you’re standing in their way while trying to photograph a chicken or your next fancy Buddha-bowl.

One day in Cambodia, a guy told me: “We’re the same age. You’re traveling the world. I can’t even afford to travel my own country.”

I didn’t know what to say... I still don’t.

Because let’s be honest, I’m only able to travel like this because of where I was born. A passport lottery I didn’t even know I was winning. A lottery that awarded me one of the most comfortable lives available on the planet.

Some Norwegian kids were playing near the bar where I was having breakfast. It reminded me: this isn’t just about travel. They don’t know, like I didn’t know back then. They’ll grow up complaining about the toy that’s not the best, that the food is too cold, that they’re bored on a summer afternoon.

Exactly as I did.

We’re told as kids, “You’re lucky you were born here.” But it makes no sense, until you actually go out and see what the world looks like. Sometimes I hear people say, “There’s so much poverty here.”
I think that’s not quite right.
It would be more accurate, and more fair, to say, “We are so rich. We are so privileged.”

But we’re too busy chasing more to stop and see that. Too eager to increase our own richness. Too “productive” to meet our friends, let alone meet the world.

The comfort, the mobility, the freedom to “go find myself”… it all exists because I come from a place that, let’s say, has historically done quite well for itself, often by helping itself to the resources of the very countries I now wander through.

As travelers, the more remote the place, the more we’re stared at. For obvious reasons.
The eyes pierce through your soul. Sometimes with surprise and curiosity. Other times, with judgment. With their limited English, they still often want to talk. And I always try.

“Where do you come from, sir?”
“I come from Italy, very far away,” I reply.
“Oooh, so beautiful!”
“Please come and visit my country. We have delicious food there!” I say.

But the words taste a little bitter. Because chances are, that person will never be able to visit Italy. Carbonara will remain a sauce they buy in a cheesy jar at the convenience store, right next to Alfredo.

And sometimes, this part still shocks me, they pay for my food. Out of generosity. Because where I’m from, generosity is often transactional. But here, it just is. A man who earns in a week what I spent on my hostel just covers my bill and smiles.

No expectations. No strings attached. Insane, I think. And deeply humbling.

And yeah, sometimes the stares feel heavy. Not unfriendly. Just… weighted. As if they’re looking at you and seeing the long shadow of history behind you. A history that hasn’t been particularly generous to them. Still, we stroll through villages with cameras like we’re on safari. Taking pictures of “local life” like we discovered it. We feel like explorers. Adventurers. Off the beaten path.

And sure, we are. But we’re also, in the most important way, no one. And maybe that’s the point. 

The art of becoming no one isn’t about guilt. It’s about learning to walk through the world without asking it to validate your existence. It’s about letting go of your CV, your identity, your need to be someone.It’s about seeing people not as part of your story, but as people, full stop. It’s remembering that your ability to leave is not a personality trait. It’s a privilege.

And sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, sweating on a plastic chair, eating noodles you can’t name with hands that don’t speak the language… you finally feel it: You are no one.

And for once, that feels exactly right.