Hi Keith, Kim, Family of origin, place of origin, it's deep, was what I meant. Somewhere out of our thinking brain. It's an issue, someway or another, as your thoughtful replies imply. Some people search around until they find their real home, and whew! That's satisfaction. I've never been closer to Africa than Engineers Without Borders videos, but the unique mystery of that old land is, well, legendary. Actually, of all the countries I have visited, I felt most at home in Israel. I'm 4th generation Canadian, neither Jewish nor Muslim, so go figure, but it just felt like home. (Costa Rica is a fantastic place too. What spirit!) But I ended up back here anyway, something about family, maybe. An interesting sidebar! Demographic dispersion: the search for comfort. Jesse
> From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:19:45 +0900 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [Biofuel] U.S., Islam, and Religion > > Hello Jesse, Derk, Robert and all > >> 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 _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
