[ WP ] You are Waldo . What 's your story ? Why are you hiding ?

There's something that's always bothered me when people talk about my books. People say I'm hiding. I'm not. 
 
 I took to exploring the world when I was 19. Ever since then, I've seen strange and stranger things. Many of them I had thought were impossible. I always had a friend named Martin Handford who would come along with me on my journeys. Whenever we found an amazing event or an unlikely gathering, Martin would get to the best vantage point he could, and he would take a picture of me, right in the middle of it. These are the pictures published in the books. 
 
 However, my perspective is that they are not pictures of me. I'm just in them. 
 
 I'll use [ this ] ( http: //cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/wheres-waldo-book-page-challenge.jpg ) page to illustrate my point. Go ahead, find me. Do n't read past this line until you do. 
 
 Now that you've found me, you think you're done with that page. You probably think you looked at it really well. 
 
 But did you notice the green dogs with alien ears sticking straight up? Did you notice the blue fruit as large as a watermelon? Did you notice the pasta with noodles at least 50 feet long and 2 inches wide? Did you see where a seemingly ordinary man took a bite out of a table? Did you notice how some of the people had blue or red or bright yellow skin? I did. 
 
 Details like those are why I keep travelling. I always find things I had never thought could exist. I am amazed, constantly, by how much of the world is completely different from any other part of it. I used to wonder what was in store for the next day before I realized that the world is so surprising I could never guess right. And there's still so much of it I've yet to see, or will never see. 
 
 Sometimes I wonder how many people think of the books as nothing more than a puzzle, or a task to be completed so they can complete the next task so they can complete the next task so... and so on. 
 
 I've never understood how a person could live like that and not go mad. That's why I set out for the first time when I was 19: I had a job that could pay the bills, but I was certain it was going to drive me mad one day. 
 
 The books are more than a puzzle. They show that the world is an amazing, unpredictable place. If you were to head out, exploring like I did, but in a different direction, we would never see the same people. The world is so huge, that to live in one tiny corner of it is all anyone, even I, can do. Even so, resigning oneself to the tiniest corner you can find is the essence of the madness I left behind. When you look for me in the pages of my books, you ignore the most interesting things in the world to find a plain-looking man you already have a picture of. 
 
 So, just, next time you pick up one of the books, do n't look for me. Just look.
