IMHO, every traveller eventually goes home, because it is the only place
that really makes sense.
What's "home"? LOL! (What's TV?)
Every place is delicately different from every
other place. But, in my struggles with languages while travelling, I was
always surprised to find the meaning of the translation is always so banal.
No new mysteries. Interesting new people, with the same take on the same
stories.
Partly, and also with a different take on different stories too.
How can this exist, I donno. This insight about your wife, Derek, really
rings for me, regarding the relationships I have attempted in other
countries. There's harmony, and at the same time, there's a tiny place
where nobody else can go. This must be a species thing, or a primordial
DON'T MIGRATE thing, it's deep, anyway, not logical. Humans are gregarious,
but they don't really adapt well.
Humans don't adapt? That's exactly what they DO do, more so than any
other species except perhaps Nordic rats and cockroaches, our noble
partners in life! It's our ability to adapt that has put us at the
pinnacle of the species pile, as much as anything else. It's the
story of our evolution.
Culturally? Different perhaps, or perhaps not. Roots, yes, sure, but
we are not trees! (More's the pity! LOL!)
Einstein said that you can't be happy too far from where you were
born, but methinks he was confusing the relative with the relatives.
I was born in Cape Town. I was never very happy in Cape Town, I
wanted to leave from an early age. And leave I did. I was never very
happy when I went back either, and the further I'd been the less
happy I'd be. Now, much later, the last couple of times I've been
there have been interesting, from the point of view of retracing some
old steps to gain a better perspective, that kind of thing, but
there's no feeling of "home", of "this is where I belong" or anything
like that. Same applies to South Africa, with the exception of a
larger sense, in that South Africa is part of Africa, and I
discovered about 15 years ago that if anything I'm an African, and it
doesn't much matter exactly where in that rather large continent.
There are things about Africa that move me, which others who've been
with me but were not Africans were oblivious to. Maybe I'll end up
there, who knows. In the meantime, though I've lived in many places,
I've never thought of any of them as "home", nor thought of staying
there permanently. Now I have no immediate family left. I mourned
them when they died, but "family" is not something I miss or feel any
lack of, any more than "home" is. Home's where you hang your hat, and
blood is not thicker than water. I had two brothers, both dead now,
neither of them was related to me in any way, but both meant much
more to me than my real brother ever did.
Do you think I must necessarily be deprived in some or many ways
because of this? I certainly don't think so. Nor would I say that
people who have not gained what I've gained because I did not have
their encumbrances are deprived either - to each his own. I didn't
plan for it to be this way, it's just that that's how it panned out.
But I'm not the only one, there are many of us who live like this.
Some people transplant, and live in their new homes quite happily.
Others keep moving on. Rolling stones gathering no moss? Well maybe -
I don't have a mortgage anyway! As for moss, it hasn't been aimless
or just whimsical, there's reason and substance to it, it makes an
integrated picture, it makes sense, not chaos. I'm not lacking for
moss. But there's more than one kind of moss.
Just my 2, um, yen.
Regards
Keith
Jesse
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:14:58 +0000
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] U.S., Islam, and Religion
>
> Hi Robert,
>
> Sorry I was confused as to whose sister was whose!
>
> Just one further comment along these lines. I've been married now
for about 20
> years. We get along pretty well and I think we have a good understanding of
> what makes each other tick. BUT, sometimes I think my wife can run into
> someone from her hometown whom she has never seen before and know
more about
> him in the first five minutes and what he is thinking that she
does about me
> after all these years. And, vice versa. There is just such a deep common
> proverbial understanding on so many issues when they have the
same background.
> I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't experienced it myself.
> Derek
> -------------- Original message from robert luis rabello <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> --------------
>
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>> Hi Luc,
>>>
>>> As I believe you said that your sister was thinking of moving
to Europe from
>> her homeland for a bit of fresh air
>>
>> Uh, Derek, that would be MY sister!
>>
>>> I might mention that I am a US expatriate. I've lived overseas now for a
>>> total
>> of fifteen years.
>>
>> I moved to Canada in 1992. It's been an enlightening experience to
>> live as a guest in someone else's country.
>>
>>> I am also married to a European, which leads to some interesting
>> (dis)harmonies as I constantly hear a European viewpoint in one
ear and a US
>> viewpoint in the other from my US family.
>>
>> It's nice to know I'm not the only one who experiences this
>> "disharmony". Sometimes, I'm astonished at the contrast in
>> perspectives, given that we live relatively close to one another,
>> speak the same language and share many cultural values. Some
>> Americans think that Canada is either one step away from communist, or
>> so very much the same that there are no significant differences
>> between the countries. There certainly ARE differences, but they are
>> subtle.
>>
>>> It has been an education and a valued one.
>>
>> Indeed!
>>>
>>> I would encourage her to go. It would be an adventure and an
education and I
>> don't think she would ever regret it. I know we haven't.
>>
>> She's been to Europe a few times already and really appreciates the
>> diversity of views and experience there. Europe is not without its
>> problems, however, and she's not naive. I would be sad to see her go,
>> only because she would be very far away, and at times, she seems like
>> the only thinking person in my entire family.
>>
>> robert luis rabello
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