Why Anthony Bourdain Still Inspires Us
Anthony Bourdain left this earth four years ago this month. Much to our astonishment and utter disbelief, in June of 2018, he completed suicide in a hotel in a French town whose name most of us can’t pronounce and even more of us will never have the time or financial means to visit. Maybe that’s precisely why he was so deeply beloved by so many he never even met. The life he led, the exotic travel, exciting far-flung friends, knowledge of food, and the ability to effortlessly slide into any culture and experience it with a level of palatable empathy and celebration that many of us envied on every level.
Anthony was charismatic, a global citizen, a relentless wanderlust who was tormented by his own personal brand of darkness. In many ways, he represented the best and worst in all of us.
When it came to his character, he appeared to be fighting and advocating for the underdogs, most of whom should never have the “underdog” status foisted on them by society. Anthony championed those who toil in our nation’s kitchens for minimum wage or harvest our food, making polite society with its fine dining and exquisite dishes possible. He spoke out against factory farming and called some of the practices toward animals and the humans who work in the system criminal. The people who made society function never appeared to be far from his mind. He was an undeniable missionary for a living wage so that dishwashers, cooks, and farm hands could live their very own version of the American dream.
I never met Anthony Bourdain. Like millions, what I believe I know about him comes from his books, interviews, and television shows, most notably Parts Unknown and No Reservations. However odd, I feel like I did know him and feel his missing presence is a loss to society.
Science has a reasonable explanation; after all, that’s simply how our brains are wired. We are highly tuned to recognize people’s faces. It’s an evolutionary holdover for discerning friend from foe in a life-or-death drama; it’s also what fuels an entire industry of celebrity endorsements. The brain loves familiar faces and seeing one trips certain chemical reactions in the brain. In that sense, our brain conditions us to react to celebrities the way we respond to those who are real and present in our life in a familiar and trustworthy way.
Long before I had even watched No Reservations, I was a student in Paris, too broke to afford to eat a proper meal in a real French restaurant, something Anthony would have surely understood. I distinctly remember getting a salad at a café and having my first taste of real bleu cheese. It was transcending. Maybe that’s one of the things we loved about his global travels. He opened doors and reignited dreams long given up or ones we never knew we had.
When household chores, graduate statistics courses, and parenting duties occupied entire weekends, he made eating noodles at 2 in the morning while sitting on a milk crate in a Cambodian alley suddenly seem like an attainable bucket list item. Advice like “always drink heavily with the locals” and “the way you make an omelet reveals your character” seemed relatable and made him even more accessible. We savor the lessons he left us during his vibrant life, as well as the lessons he left us with his exit.
Three days before Anthony departed, Kate Spade hung herself in her Manhattan apartment. In death they brought home the message that preventing suicide was much more complicated than it appears to those of us lucky enough to never know the darkest places of one’s mind.
The years since Bourdain’s death have not been particularly easy. COVID ravaged the world, claiming over a million lives in the United States alone. Scourges on society that existed pre-COVID like inequality continued. There have been over 2,100 mass shootings; the years of the pandemic lockdown were the worst with nearly 700 in 2021 alone.
Last fall a coalition of pediatricians sounded the alarm, calling the mental health crisis among our nation’s children a national emergency, with emergency room visits for suicide attempts up 51% for girls aged 12 to 17. It’s clear our old ways of looking at suicide prevention are not working. We are already failing the next generation when it comes to suicide prevention.
Each year since he left this earth, I make a modest social media post. My call to action for my friends and family is to challenge them to add some “Bourdain” to their day in honor of Anthony. This year, it seems especially important to do something out of your comfort zone.
Have a small adventure, grossly over-tip your barista or server, try something new, or simply check in on a friend who seems to have it all, but may in fact just be presenting her Facebook life.
Check on friends and family you haven’t heard from lately or much over the last two years. Call, call again, text, visit, email, drop by their house with tacos in hand. Let them know you care.
Book that vacation you have never quite gotten around to. Do something nice for a stranger or volunteer somewhere you’ve never been with people you don’t know. We always say it’s more about the journey than the destination. Your openness to new experiences may lead to your personal growth. You may think you’re in it to help others but you’re the one who will benefit most.
Maybe that’s why his passing strikes such a chord with so many. His show was called Parts Unknown. Maybe it referred to parts within ourselves that we need the courage to explore without fear of failure or rejection. I am sure Anthony would be proud.
