There’s no place like home

In a parallel universe, I am resisting the need for an office by working anywhere I like. In a public library, in my home office, at a client's office, in an open university like SMU... :-)

So where's the "Office"?

Nice post, Derek.

Now i'm planning to move to Singapore in this September to study medicine/medical system in Singapore. i've long worried about the life far away from my home country but, your essay encouraged me much! Then i'm very much interested in why you chose the place to live in Singapore!

I didn't feel at home until I moved to New York. Then, I realized I had been a New Yorker all my life, without the minor detail of living there.

It's refreshing to see this written; I am a Bangladeshi, born in London, raised in North Carolina and Pittsburgh, PA, now living in San Francisco. I was always a bit of an outsider to the traditional Bengali community, and an outsider to the western communities. And now, I speak more German than Bengali. Which has made me very adaptable and not attached to one place. I honestly struggle deciding how to answer when someone asks "where are you from?"

But I do have to say that San Francisco is a pretty good place to mingle with others of non-specific identity.

Great photo! Everyone looks like they're from a different culture, and like they are all fitting in fine.

Grew up in an air force family moving every 2-3 years. Can't get moving out of my blood. Noticed that a lot of my friends now have jobs or live lives with traveling as a main feature. Then, one day, my uncle asked me, "when you die, where would you want to be buried?" Made me think that, maybe, all this moving around is just a way to find "home."

That's a kind of geographic polygamy... Love it!

Now your living in your own world
enjoying the good side of life.
Used your energy accomplish all you
can tommorow is another day. Photo,
all are looking healthy and joyfull
Live life loud.

Totally hearing you! That's been my mantra since I started travelling with my music. Love your response to, "What are you running from?" I'm going to use that when I get the question again!

I'd rather think of it like any place can feel like home. Home is where you want it to be.

Love the perspective though!

Not attached to any one mindset, but what about the people: friends, family, the people who are attached to you. Do you not in each place you depart, leave a hole (in physical presence in building of community) where you resided? Does this loss account for nothing? Are you not concerned for depth of connection and building of community that only comes from day-to-day interaction?

Derek your post really resonates with me, I agree with your position as this is how I am most comfortable living my life. Still the aforementioned questions continue to tickle the back of my brain.

Do you grapple with the devils advocate or simply dismiss the thoughts as monkey mind?
Since I've always been this way, my best friends have always been phone-friends. In-person sometimes, but our core relationship comes from our phone conversations. — Derek

I think these digital nomads will become more and more common.

Fewer people than ever are tied to an industry in a town for life.

Fewer people than ever have their entire family in one town.

Fewer people stay in one job for life.

More work is done remotely over the Internet.

I don't want to travel, I want to live in these places, a year or less at a time.

Having a similar type of response when people ask, where are you from... Born one place, grew up in several others, moved around several times after that. It becomes a bit of a way to say - I'm at home with me and wherever I am and who I'm with.

Definitely have to keep up a lot of phone time beyond the computer screen. Must be why I do game nights and other get togethers. To get out and meet new people and stay connected with others.

I'm sure it will be a while before we cross paths again.

Great read.
"Someone once asked what I’m running from. When you sit in your kitchen, are you running from your living room? They’re all just rooms in your house. You sit in them at different times for different needs."

Damn, should have had that as a comeback when someone asked me that same question!

There is an argument for the elimination of borders.

Great perspective, as always Derek.

I want people who are important to me across the world to know that I never reject them, nor am I commenting implicitly on their life choices when I go... It's not about leaving, it's about reaching.

I'm not sure that I'm proficient enough at making this clear, sometimes. Have fun there. ---T

Home is where I can be fully myself, fully accepted, fully loved. Home is a place where I share conversations, meals, duties, hopes, disappointments. Home is where I meet my family, where I invite my friends. Home=belong. The best home is only a reflection of our true home, which is spoken of in John 14:2

So Derek, how do you eventually answer the common question: "Where are you from?"
After years of rebelling against the question, now I just answer “California” It's the short answer people want. If they want details, I'll tell them the full story. — Derek

I think it's terrific that you have an open mind and heart to the world, but I'm glad you aren't travelling alone anyway.

Amen :)

Home is where the heart is man!

Third Culture Kids are more and more common now thanks to advent of globalisation and cheaper travel.

Back to reading the 4 hour work week then :-)

Derek,

As is so often true, I can deeply relate with your post. I, too, have never attached strongly to places. I enjoy them. I like visiting new places and exploring.

For me, what's different is that, I'm not much of a phone-person. Or was not until very recently. It seemed too impersonal or something and so friends in faraway places just didn't get to hear from me much unless it was on e-mail or FaceBook.

At the same time, I _do_ get attached to people and often it takes me years to get over my sense of loss when a person -- them or me -- moves away.

Thanks for kick-starting my nostalgia. Your blog has helped me to make a great morning for myself.

Playful blessings,
Stan

Another great one, Derek!

It's kind of difficult to relate as i've always lived in Oxford and the city just seems like home to me, but I do intend to detach and try new places!

M

Love this post. Home is definitely where the heart is!

It's impossible don't remember Wherever I may Roam, from Metallica, while reading this post. The verse "Where I lay my head is home" summarizes very well your feeling.

Polynativism is a luxury made possible by petroleum.

I've always talked about "my heart being in two places", or "having two homes" because I lives somewhere other than where I grew up. When I'm in one, I miss the other. I love them both.

I enjoyed this post.

When I read "different [places] for different needs" I think of agrarian societies where really knowing the land/climate makes a big difference. And nomadic cultures. And traveling minstrels.

Thank you for the thought provoking post which, in itself, brought me to many different places, all without leaving my living room.

"Someone once asked what I’m running from. When you sit in your kitchen, are you running from your living room?"

Beautiful :)

For a place to become home, you have to be intergrated somehow into the physical environment. When I toured for a year, I use to come home and in the middle of the night I would think the bathroom was to my right.
So I got to know the name of the guy down at the video store. The name of the Chinese chef at Dang Howes", I did all I could to be a part of the community. I live in Carmel, when I'm driving south on 1 from the Bay Area and I see the Monterey Bay on the right; I know I'm home and it feels like it.

Someone recently accused me of being "one of those people who have to keep moving to be happy; never satisfied with what they have".

I explained that, on the contrary, I'm happy wherever I am. In fact, I always hate to leave the place I'm in. But further adventures always await, and I don't want to miss out on them because of the ties I have to some particular piece of dirt.

yes! thank you for this. home is where i am.

I've said something similar for a while. There's no such thing as happy places, only happy people.

Sometimes people move around to try to find a happier life for themself. The things that keep us from being happy often follow us from place to place though. So it's important to focus on what, not where makes you happy.

Greetings to You,

Jan

Home, to me, is the place where loved ones are. Spent some time in Nashville but the vast majority of my life in the uppermost parts of the Great Plains. I have to admit there's a certain Andy Griffith Mayberry feeling to them that no place can match, but opportunity is always waiting out there somewhere else.

The older I get the more I have come to believe, "Home is where the Hearth is" ... Where your at is home if you want it to be ... It seems to me we all confuse the term "Home" with "Birthplace" ...

Good Luck Derek !
Godspeed !

I agree:) And also, it is a great picture!

Your post made me think of the following adage: "Those with two women lose their soul, but those with two homes lose their mind."

Then again, if no place feels like home, the mind can be saved after all. :-)

(P.S. This is my first comment here. I enjoy this blog a lot.)

Once my wife and I had traveled fairly extensively for about two years, we started to feel similarly: we can mostly feel comfortable mostly anywhere, and relatively quickly.

We say that home is where you pay your taxes.

For this very reason, a powerful business connector once taught me, it is always better to ask: "Where were you born?" and "Where did you grow up?" rather than ask "Where are you from?"

With today's technological innovations you can move from one place to another and keep the connections you have previously made alive. Just a generation ago, the postal service served this role, but it is definitely easier and more fully featured today. I think that makes it easier to feel at home where ever you are.

gratitude......for so much........and for representing us all so beautifully..............

oooooh schneaky Derek in that picture... :P

Derek, I think it's a matter of personality. As I normally say, we are wired differently. On my part, I will not feel at home away from the community I care for. I live with them, I care for them. That's me perhaps. And others too. :)

When you see the world and live in a few different places your definition of "normal" becomes somewhat vague too.

You can always say you are from planet Earth :)

20 years in Brasil (mind we moved every 2-4 years someplace), 20 years in California and now I have an offer to move to Texas. Family is not happy, but staying in one place for too long seems to make me lazy and afraid.
Being afraid is not fun, and challenge keeps one alive. I think I'm taking the offer and packing...

Home… for “homeless” people is a difficult word to define… I believe it is not a place but a state of mind.

I feel home in places I found open minded people, with whom I feel comfortable.
What amazes me most is when I meet people that, no matter their origin, culture, religion, gender is quite similar to me, for what concern opinions and expectations and this makes me think that somehow we are all connected… so, home could be any place in the world, it will only depends upon people!!

Very nice post Derek!

Reminds me of this post by Sean Bonner "Where is Home?"

http://blog.seanbonner.com/2010/05/29/where-is-home/

The idea of “home” is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. As a kid home was where I slept and spent most of my time when not at school, but because my family moved around a lot I didn’t have any real emotional connection to it. As an adult I often tell people that it wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles that I actually felt like I was home. I’ve talked to a lot of friends about this over the years and I get the feeling for a lot of people the idea of home is much more romanticized than anything they’ve ever actually experienced. What with “home is where the heart is” and other such slogans beaten into our heads. But even that doesn’t point so much to a place as a feeling, right? If you can feel like you are home when you are around certain people just as much as when you are in certain places then maybe home itself needs to be better defined before you can try and figure out where it is.

I think that was Bono (U2) whom said : A house still doesn't make a home .

Cool, yeah I agree. I want the world to be my home and feel comfortable too. So far I only have a few places, but am branching out this year again !!!

Cheers and thanks for sharing!

As someone who has lived on 6 continents, I hate that question: "What are you running from?"

My answer: "People who ask stupid questions."

billy@longandcomplicated.com

Best Regards to You Derek and you family.

I know the feeling ... I experience that on a generational level as well- my family on both sides were migrants as far back as the story goes..... also I have recently come across the ideas of Vilem Flusser who posits that migrants often feel more comfortable as being on the edge of belonging and that we make that as a choice- a choice which allows for more creative and innovative living- interesting: ) here is a link http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/56kyc3ex9780252028175.html

I don't really call anyplace home. I suppose that's opposite of your view - that everywhere can feel like home :)

For those who feel a strong attachment to one place, there is a Maori word: your "turangawaewae", meaning "footstool" or "the place where you stand". Many people feel this, though not everyone; for some it's a town, or even a particular street or hill, for others it's a region or country. It's not necessarily your birthplace. Once you've found it, the feeling doesn't leave you.

You seem to be having a good time wherever you're at. Good for you.

I feel like everyplace is home and feels like home. Is that what you're trying to say? I think home is home because we are there, we make 'home'. That is assuming that you 'we' truly live in the moment and emotionally connect with our own lives and our environment. Those elements are not to be taken lightly and is probably different for everyone. I often if other people, my spouse feels and sees things the way I do. I sure hope so! Anyway, this is sounding a little serious, :) hoping we are living life the way it was meant each day.

That's what I think anyway --

Home for me is where the people I love are otherwise anywhere is empty

ni hao ma Derek you are living the dream, at least the one that I would hve enjoyed to live.
I travel a bit, with my wife Linda Chorney. She is the real travel bug, and one of the reasons that we are together.. just one which is an important element of LOVE, shared passions.
Music, Travel, Food, Wine, Lnadscapes, Cultural Studdies...

Peace

I love to travel. Currently I live in a place I like to go back to after going somewhere else. I can't say I call it home. I still haven't found the place I never want to leave.

Everwhere, but everywhere, is illuminated. Thanks for sharing your story. Home is awareness & people, no? Geography is the frosting.
M

Definitely refreshing to see this written. I am very transient and don't really have ties to any place. Sometimes i feel a bit wrong to not have a "home" but then again, i have travelled a lot and have seen so many beautiful places.

"When you sit in your kitchen, are you running from your living room?"

No, but my refrigerator is running. (Most of the time.)

We are now anywhere, everywhere and nowhere all at once.

I feel that "home" is where ever my current residence is. My job gives me the opportunity to work anywhere there is an Internet connection, which is awesome.

I do find that I always refer to the city I was born in as "home" though. I also always have a strange urge to go back there.

Really interesting point of view! I have never been thinking like this. But maybe there is sense. Maybe for most of the people, home is a lot about place where their house and other stuff is.

realy there is no place in the word can replace home in my opinion it's sothing noble

Fantastic!!!!!

From Sweden. when i was 8 i moved to South Africa. When i was 12 i mved back to Sweden Stockholm. But ive always had this urge to keep moving. so when i was 15 i moved away from home (within sweden though). When i was 19 i moved to Shanghai and stayed for 2 years.

Now im moving to Japan for 6 months and then Taiwan for 6.

My plan is to live in 15 places the next 45 years.

My god this is my dream! Please Email me and gives me points and notes!!

I want to see EVERYTHING and experience every culture available!!!!!!

I haven't really stayed in a country long enough to call it home. Maybe I can have different homes when I travel more in the future.

By the way Derek, your photo looks creepy lol.

"What are you running from?" could just as easily be "What are you running TO?"

Staying in one place could be interpreted as 'running' away from the rest of the world by 'hiding' from it.

If someone asks that question it could be them revealing their uncomfortable feelings about everything else out there in the world.

Great post Derek, I agree we need more Dereks!

I think home is where you're understood.

Read your posts from time to time, love 'em. Hope you keep posting, your thoughts are always thought provoking and meaningful

Home is where I can walk about and my heart swells with happiness.

In my house I have put up pictures of my current time zone because I am trying to call it home. But I no longer have the same youthful hormones for heart-swelling happiness and so it is taking longer to feel as homey.

Perhaps people who live exclusively in cities can switch homes easier, since cityscapes are a lot alike.

I've noted before that I can't see Derek painting himself in bleacher colours and cheering hoarsely for the home team. And yet, our Greco-Roman ancestors would totally understand a similar love of their country/city-state

In fact, one of the apostles had to be returned all the way to Rome for his trial, because he was a proud citizen of Rome. When an Olympian returned home, sometimes the townsmen would crash out a new gate in the city wall.

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead/that never to himself has said/ ..." (something about having a country)

I guess, in a way, I am combining the concepts of home and belonging. If I move to a new city (a rare thing) then I try to do the same as if I moved to a new campus. I decide in advance that I will not be apathetic, but will belong. I read regular publications, paying attention to the names of the writers, not just the famous. I learn into the history, landmarks and culture. I get to know people, not just new friends but also regular passing joggers, buskers and coffee baristas. I know "belonging" is a man-made construct, but that's OK.

Years ago I turned down a chance to go teach English in China. Why? (Partly because) I didn't want to be lonely once more. Because I was once a glorified orphan, and I don't ever want to live like that again.

Hi Derek,


I was reading your website and I like this way of thinking and living.

Sometimes Belgium? Can I ask you why?
I live here. Maby we can meet next time.

All the best,

Sanju Baetens