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David Brooks channels academics Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson in his NYT op ed, The Haimish Line, a lovely look at how we so often miss the point of what’s really important in our quest to live life to the full. He writes:

We also live in a highly individualistic culture. When we’re shopping for a vacation we’re primarily thinking about Where. The travel companies offer brochures showing private beaches and phenomenal sights. But when you come back from vacation, you primarily treasure the memories of Who — the people you met from faraway places, and the lives you came in contact with.

Lovely.

** Update. On posting this to Twitter, I got a super interesting backlash/response. Cameron Tonkinwise wrote scathingly that “Brooks Bourgeois” has missed the point. “Plenty of wealthy baby boomers are decluttering to experience the good life: that leads to this.” Sam Potts also chimed in, pointing out that an organized safari is “hardly an authentic experience of Kenya and Tanzania. It’s all a script.” I still think that Brooks offers a useful recasting, from Where to Who, but these notes are a good reminder to remember that just because you feel at one with the apparently happy, jolly servers in the down-home tourist center, that doesn’t mean your glow of goodwill to all men is necessarily reciprocated.

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