What Anthony Bourdain Taught Me About Being Human

It was Bourdain Day earlier this week. He would have hated it. But the barrage of old clips from his shows and quotes over social media had me reflecting on how his way of moving through the world taught me about what it means to be human.

Bourdain didn’t just eat food. He paid attention.
To the burn of spice and the crackle of politics.
To the taste of history in every dish.
To the tension in the air, the weight of silence, the joy that survived anyway.

He never looked away - from grief, from conflict, from injustice.
From the messiness of other people’s lives, and from his own darkness.
That kind of rawness and being willing to show up fully, without pretence, is at the heart of humanity.

By Cheryl/miss bake-a-lot. - Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thebakerwhocooks/117114719/., CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1459812

He refused to simplify.
His stories didn’t flatten people into stereotypes.
Instead, he let them be human; contradictory, complicated, imperfect.

His philosophy was curious, uncomfortable, deeply human.
He showed that food is never just food. It’s power, culture, resilience, history.
It’s what’s shared in celebration and in sorrow.
It carries memory, identity, survival.

What he taught me is this: to be human is to bear witness without armour.
To stay hungry - not for things, but for truth, connection, and context.
To lean into discomfort and contradiction, not run from it.

That hunger shapes how I travel and how I connect with others.
It’s not about ticking off places or chasing the perfect itinerary.
It’s about sitting with the messy, listening deeply, honouring stories that don’t fit neat boxes.
It’s about recognising the resilience in every person and place I encounter.

I have to admit - I don’t like small talk.
Sometimes, the easiest conversations feel the most hollow.
Talk that can fill space but rarely fills the soul.

Bourdain reminds me that real connection demands more presence, more honesty, more willingness to sit in silence and with awkwardness and complexity.

He showed us that being human means being willing to be uncomfortable, to speak and listen with truth, even when it’s messy or awkward.

That kind of openness is what I’m learning to lean into - in conversations, in travel, in work, and in everyday moments - because it’s the only way to move beyond surface and really see each other.

This approach shapes how I engage with academic work. Each research project, each collaboration, becomes a chance to reflect - not just on outcomes, but on how I show up. Am I staying curious enough? Listening beyond the surface? Holding space for the messy, human complexity behind the data? Reflecting on how I can do better? Bourdain’s philosophy inspires me to do better at every step - questioning assumptions, embracing discomfort, and valuing honesty over polish. It’s a continual practice of reflection and growth, reminding me that real understanding comes from bearing witness with humility and openness, even when it’s hard.

Being human means holding complexity, silence and discomfort without rushing to fix or flatten it.
It means showing up with presence and humility - whether in a distant country or in the day-to-day.
It means accepting that we are all just passing through.

Bourdain made it clear: if we pay attention, if we tell the truth, eat the dish, and ask the hard questions, we might leave the world a little better than we found it.

What Bourdain taught me about being human is this: it’s messy and beautiful and hard, and it demands our full attention.