Category Archives: reflection

On confusion

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Finally, I get to write about something about which I am an expert. Confusion is a state of mind in which nothing makes sense–the world is illogical, the pieces don’t fit together, two and two don’t make four. For me, the best way to deal with confusion is to admit that I am confused and that the confusion is not going away any time soon. Whether one is actually confused or just pretending to know what is going on, the world is a complicated place. Confusion often arrises out of a desire to put the pieces together when there is no chance that the world actually makes sense. There are those who would argue the world always makes sense, that it just is, and they create a bunch of myths that explain everything. It isn’t so much that the myths are untrue–they are–it’s the initial premise that myths explain the world which is wrong. Yet, confusion is not a comfortable thing with which to live, so many people resort to listening to spurious myths about the way is constructed, constructing a world which makes sense to them, but it doesn’t make sense to others who don’t except their take on reality. Confusion is really about accepting the fact that many times the world–fragmented, chaotic, contradictory, dissonant, and unexplainable–is not logical or sensible in any way at all. The problem with confusion is probably something quite simple: we hate feeling confused, which is the result of not keeping a lid on our own egos. We think we can know the world, and we won’t admit to confusion. I am quite comfortable with feeling confused. I have come to terms with a world that I don’t understand, and I’m not sure I want to. Perhaps a little confusion is a good thing–keeps us honest about how much we don’t know about the world, a quantity which will probably fill volumes someday. We get cocky with our computers, tablets, and smart phones. We live with the illusion that we control things, that we are manipulating the world, that we know what we are doing. We are kidding ourselves about how we think we have constructed our own logical realities. Confusion is the chaos of bad traffic, a broken escalator, a dead battery, or any of the strange and confusing happenings that break up our daily routine which appear unexplainable or unfathomable. We give ourselves headaches trying to make sense of things that make no sense. We talk about fate or destiny, but this is nothing but self-justification for what is actually chaos. We want to see order where there is none; we want the world to make sense–confusion is anathema to our psychological profiles as type A personalities who want to control everything. By allowing myself to feel confused, I make no claim to understanding why the world is as it is. If there is a big picture, I haven’t been privy to that conversation, so I’m not going to worry about it. So when I don’t understand the crisis or conflicts of the world, I don’t worry about it, especially those things which I can’t change, and work on those problems which might have solutions, no matter how confusing they might be. I also find my own attitude to be both confusing and inexplicable most of the time. Confusion is a helpful way to view the world because it removes the pressure of explaining everything, allowing me to be more comfortable in a world that I only partially understand.

On confusion

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Finally, I get to write about something about which I am an expert. Confusion is a state of mind in which nothing makes sense–the world is illogical, the pieces don’t fit together, two and two don’t make four. For me, the best way to deal with confusion is to admit that I am confused and that the confusion is not going away any time soon. Whether one is actually confused or just pretending to know what is going on, the world is a complicated place. Confusion often arrises out of a desire to put the pieces together when there is no chance that the world actually makes sense. There are those who would argue the world always makes sense, that it just is, and they create a bunch of myths that explain everything. It isn’t so much that the myths are untrue–they are–it’s the initial premise that myths explain the world which is wrong. Yet, confusion is not a comfortable thing with which to live, so many people resort to listening to spurious myths about the way is constructed, constructing a world which makes sense to them, but it doesn’t make sense to others who don’t except their take on reality. Confusion is really about accepting the fact that many times the world–fragmented, chaotic, contradictory, dissonant, and unexplainable–is not logical or sensible in any way at all. The problem with confusion is probably something quite simple: we hate feeling confused, which is the result of not keeping a lid on our own egos. We think we can know the world, and we won’t admit to confusion. I am quite comfortable with feeling confused. I have come to terms with a world that I don’t understand, and I’m not sure I want to. Perhaps a little confusion is a good thing–keeps us honest about how much we don’t know about the world, a quantity which will probably fill volumes someday. We get cocky with our computers, tablets, and smart phones. We live with the illusion that we control things, that we are manipulating the world, that we know what we are doing. We are kidding ourselves about how we think we have constructed our own logical realities. Confusion is the chaos of bad traffic, a broken escalator, a dead battery, or any of the strange and confusing happenings that break up our daily routine which appear unexplainable or unfathomable. We give ourselves headaches trying to make sense of things that make no sense. We talk about fate or destiny, but this is nothing but self-justification for what is actually chaos. We want to see order where there is none; we want the world to make sense–confusion is anathema to our psychological profiles as type A personalities who want to control everything. By allowing myself to feel confused, I make no claim to understanding why the world is as it is. If there is a big picture, I haven’t been privy to that conversation, so I’m not going to worry about it. So when I don’t understand the crisis or conflicts of the world, I don’t worry about it, especially those things which I can’t change, and work on those problems which might have solutions, no matter how confusing they might be. I also find my own attitude to be both confusing and inexplicable most of the time. Confusion is a helpful way to view the world because it removes the pressure of explaining everything, allowing me to be more comfortable in a world that I only partially understand.

On Pi, Richard Parker, and Don Quixote

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I am reading “The Life of Pi” (Martell) again, and I am again troubled by the dueling stories offered by Pi to the Japanese insurance investigators. Most anyone who has read the novel gets a pie (Pi?) in the face toward the end of the novel when Pi offers up an alternative story/explanation to his time at sea, adrift, in a life boat. His alternative story involving his mother and a couple errant crewmen is a shocking reversal to his story about the tiger Richard Parker and their solitary days adrift at sea. The insurance investigators are mesmerized by Pi’s story of survival, danger, and fear, but they are also incredulous, and could not believe Pi’s wild story of shipwreck and survival in a lifeboat with a full-grown Bengal tiger. After they question his story–no tiger to be seen anywhere–Pi tells an alternative version that does not involve a tiger, but his alternate version is violent, tragic, grisly, sad, and mundane, lacking the verve and imagination of the same story involving Richard Parker, the tiger. The insurance investigators, who by their very nature must be cynics, are only looking for the facts, and an imaginative and unbelievable story involving a non-existent (at least from their point of view) tiger will not help them settle a multimillion dollar claim on the lost ship. They are pragmatists. They want an explanation they can sell to others. The problem is that Pi tells two stories, one, about how he tames a tiger and rides out a long shipwreck narrative at sea, the other story, the short version, is about how Pi might have witnessed the murder of his mother while he himself might have murdered others in order to survive. During my first reading experience with Pi and Richard Parker, I opted to believe the strange story that Pi narrates about his life in India, the crossing on the ship, the shipwreck, the lifeboat, and Richard Parker. The story is elaborate and unusual, but it chronicles a fight for survival, the ability to adapt to changing circumstance, courage and the unwillingness to just give up in the face of horrible odds. Pi works to train the tiger, fight off boredom and fear, fishes, collects fresh water, does everything in his power to survive. He makes a heroes journey from the depths of despair to the top of Olympus when he and Richard Parker finally come ashore in Mexico. This is a story about the strength of the human heart, about human ingenuity, about loving life, about surviving in the face of enormous odds. Pi’s story about his interactions with a Bengal tiger seems highly improbable given the killer nature of a hungry predator. In fact, Pi’s story is so improbable that it seems impossible, but there is a huge distance between improbable and impossible. Perhaps believing in one story or the other is a question of what Cervantes called “verisimilitude” in a narration. The Spaniard felt that although readers had to suspend their disbelief while reading a novel, a writer must also give his readers a place to “hang their hats,” so to speak–that the story had to have its feet on the ground at some point to be believable. If you are writing about a crazy guy who thinks he’s a knight, plays with horses and swords, you must first make him a regular guy who people might meet in the street on any given day, so before you invent Don Quixote, you must first invent Alonso Quijano, the Good. I believe Jan Martell is playing on the ground between fantasy and verisimilitude, walking a thin line between what is possible and improbable and impossible and fantastic. Martell rocks the narrative boat by offering a very real alternative that lacks any sort of improbable elements–no tiger, no fantasy, handing readers a problem: which narrative do they choose to believe.

On Pi, Richard Parker, and Don Quixote

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I am reading “The Life of Pi” (Martell) again, and I am again troubled by the dueling stories offered by Pi to the Japanese insurance investigators. Most anyone who has read the novel gets a pie (Pi?) in the face toward the end of the novel when Pi offers up an alternative story/explanation to his time at sea, adrift, in a life boat. His alternative story involving his mother and a couple errant crewmen is a shocking reversal to his story about the tiger Richard Parker and their solitary days adrift at sea. The insurance investigators are mesmerized by Pi’s story of survival, danger, and fear, but they are also incredulous, and could not believe Pi’s wild story of shipwreck and survival in a lifeboat with a full-grown Bengal tiger. After they question his story–no tiger to be seen anywhere–Pi tells an alternative version that does not involve a tiger, but his alternate version is violent, tragic, grisly, sad, and mundane, lacking the verve and imagination of the same story involving Richard Parker, the tiger. The insurance investigators, who by their very nature must be cynics, are only looking for the facts, and an imaginative and unbelievable story involving a non-existent (at least from their point of view) tiger will not help them settle a multimillion dollar claim on the lost ship. They are pragmatists. They want an explanation they can sell to others. The problem is that Pi tells two stories, one, about how he tames a tiger and rides out a long shipwreck narrative at sea, the other story, the short version, is about how Pi might have witnessed the murder of his mother while he himself might have murdered others in order to survive. During my first reading experience with Pi and Richard Parker, I opted to believe the strange story that Pi narrates about his life in India, the crossing on the ship, the shipwreck, the lifeboat, and Richard Parker. The story is elaborate and unusual, but it chronicles a fight for survival, the ability to adapt to changing circumstance, courage and the unwillingness to just give up in the face of horrible odds. Pi works to train the tiger, fight off boredom and fear, fishes, collects fresh water, does everything in his power to survive. He makes a heroes journey from the depths of despair to the top of Olympus when he and Richard Parker finally come ashore in Mexico. This is a story about the strength of the human heart, about human ingenuity, about loving life, about surviving in the face of enormous odds. Pi’s story about his interactions with a Bengal tiger seems highly improbable given the killer nature of a hungry predator. In fact, Pi’s story is so improbable that it seems impossible, but there is a huge distance between improbable and impossible. Perhaps believing in one story or the other is a question of what Cervantes called “verisimilitude” in a narration. The Spaniard felt that although readers had to suspend their disbelief while reading a novel, a writer must also give his readers a place to “hang their hats,” so to speak–that the story had to have its feet on the ground at some point to be believable. If you are writing about a crazy guy who thinks he’s a knight, plays with horses and swords, you must first make him a regular guy who people might meet in the street on any given day, so before you invent Don Quixote, you must first invent Alonso Quijano, the Good. I believe Jan Martell is playing on the ground between fantasy and verisimilitude, walking a thin line between what is possible and improbable and impossible and fantastic. Martell rocks the narrative boat by offering a very real alternative that lacks any sort of improbable elements–no tiger, no fantasy, handing readers a problem: which narrative do they choose to believe.

On some final thoughts on Peru

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My trip to Peru was well-organized, well-planned, well-thought out. Obviously, Peru is a country of contrasts, rich/poor, European/Quechua, English/Spanish, urban/rural, modern/ancient. I have encountered these contrasts before, but never to this extent. I have a new appreciation for all of the wonderful things and people that populate my life because I saw how limited life might be when you don’t have certain advantage, I saw a lot of people going off to work crammed into tiny buses, three-wheeled tricycles taxis, traveling on foot. Cars were a luxury. I gained a new found admiration for people who can live at or above 13,000 feet where the air is thin, the temperatures are cold, and making a living is very hard–little heat, no air conditioning, few creature comforts, Llamas are not the easiest animals to live with, and roads that I would take for granted are narrow, curvy, and rough, which is totally normal in rural Peru. I think that the hardest thing to navigate is that poverty, You can buy a piece of weaving, you can pay tips to visit a local home, you can employ a few of the locals for sharing their day with you, but the poverty these local indigenous peoples is real and you really can’t solve that. For some really simple reasons (and a couple which are rather complicated) these high mountain people are isolated from the horn of plenty which some people in urban Lima and other large cities enjoy. There are issues of literacy, of even speaking the language of power and influence–Spanish. The legacy left by colonial Spain is far reaching and powerful. The Spanish have been gone for more than a century and a half, but the political and social mess that they created still hangs on, and the shadow of Pizarro hangs long over a city like Cuzco. I also realize now that there is very little that the Peruvians might do to resolve many of their rural social problems. Since transportation is such a huge issue in a country that is as mountainous as Peru, many people never travel more than a few miles from the place where they were born. The rural indigenous Quechua are a small portion of the entire population, so the federal government cannot rationalize spending large amounts of money to connect those people to better systems of health and education. I also realized that American culture consumes enormous amounts of resources–water, food, housing, education, health, space, energy. We are a culture of hyper-consumerism. Nevertheless, I have a new appreciation for the industry and exuberance of my own country and its ability to generate wealth and power. Peru struggles with a political corruption that paralyzes its ability to solve social problems or to control the exploitation of its natural resources. In some ways, Peru is an emerging nation and economy. Mining, agriculture, fishing, tourism, and manufacturing are all growing parts of burgeoning economy in which many Peruvians might participate, but then again, many rural people find themselves isolated, marginalized, and left out. The paradoxes between the have’s and the have-not’s is breathtaking as ancient forces and beliefs collide with post-modern hyper-consumerism in a post-colonial meltdown of European values, languages, and conventions.

On some final thoughts on Peru

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My trip to Peru was well-organized, well-planned, well-thought out. Obviously, Peru is a country of contrasts, rich/poor, European/Quechua, English/Spanish, urban/rural, modern/ancient. I have encountered these contrasts before, but never to this extent. I have a new appreciation for all of the wonderful things and people that populate my life because I saw how limited life might be when you don’t have certain advantage, I saw a lot of people going off to work crammed into tiny buses, three-wheeled tricycles taxis, traveling on foot. Cars were a luxury. I gained a new found admiration for people who can live at or above 13,000 feet where the air is thin, the temperatures are cold, and making a living is very hard–little heat, no air conditioning, few creature comforts, Llamas are not the easiest animals to live with, and roads that I would take for granted are narrow, curvy, and rough, which is totally normal in rural Peru. I think that the hardest thing to navigate is that poverty, You can buy a piece of weaving, you can pay tips to visit a local home, you can employ a few of the locals for sharing their day with you, but the poverty these local indigenous peoples is real and you really can’t solve that. For some really simple reasons (and a couple which are rather complicated) these high mountain people are isolated from the horn of plenty which some people in urban Lima and other large cities enjoy. There are issues of literacy, of even speaking the language of power and influence–Spanish. The legacy left by colonial Spain is far reaching and powerful. The Spanish have been gone for more than a century and a half, but the political and social mess that they created still hangs on, and the shadow of Pizarro hangs long over a city like Cuzco. I also realize now that there is very little that the Peruvians might do to resolve many of their rural social problems. Since transportation is such a huge issue in a country that is as mountainous as Peru, many people never travel more than a few miles from the place where they were born. The rural indigenous Quechua are a small portion of the entire population, so the federal government cannot rationalize spending large amounts of money to connect those people to better systems of health and education. I also realized that American culture consumes enormous amounts of resources–water, food, housing, education, health, space, energy. We are a culture of hyper-consumerism. Nevertheless, I have a new appreciation for the industry and exuberance of my own country and its ability to generate wealth and power. Peru struggles with a political corruption that paralyzes its ability to solve social problems or to control the exploitation of its natural resources. In some ways, Peru is an emerging nation and economy. Mining, agriculture, fishing, tourism, and manufacturing are all growing parts of burgeoning economy in which many Peruvians might participate, but then again, many rural people find themselves isolated, marginalized, and left out. The paradoxes between the have’s and the have-not’s is breathtaking as ancient forces and beliefs collide with post-modern hyper-consumerism in a post-colonial meltdown of European values, languages, and conventions.

On Lima, Peru

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I am so glad I’ve finally come to Lima. I arrived this morning on the red-eye from Miami, and took off to see a pre-Inca ruin called Huaca Pucllana in the middle of the Miraflores township of Lima, which rises almost two hundred feet above the surrounding buildings. A huge mound of hand-made adobe bricks, the bricks are stacked vertically with space between them to fight the earthquake problem so common in this coastal city. This “pyramid” was totally unknown thirty years ago and three pre-Incan peoples occupied this sacred space. The people of Lima had collectively forgotten what it was and thought it was just a large, dusty (or muddy) hill in Miraflores. On a short tour we got to experience first hand all of the plants, fruits, and vegetables that the local people had eaten or sacrificed on this spot. We also got to meet, first hand, the famous Peruvian Cuy, Llamas, and Alpacas–live and in the flesh. Later, we went down to the ocean front to check out the beautiful Pacific before going to the most excellent ceviche lunch you have ever had. We stopped in at a sidewalk terrace for some well-deserved espressos afterward. Since there is no rest for the wicked or the foolish, we then got onto our tour bus to head downtown to the Plaza Mayor and check out the center of Lima. We visited (or observed from a distance) the city hall, the president’s mansion, the archbishop’s house, the cathedral, a Franciscan monastery (which had an enormously interesting bone pile underneath it), and the largest private museum of native indigenous artifacts that exists in Peru. We finally got back to the hotel for a bite of dinner around 7:30 p.m. Big thanks to Millennium Travel of Texas who had us controlled and directed from airport to hotel to Plaza Mayor to museum to the hotel. I was amazed at how kind the people are, how clean and wonderful the city is for a city of nine million souls. It’s not perfect, and no city is, but my experience was wonderful, having coffee, touring an ancient ruin, having ceviche, having a beverage down at the bay, walking the streets of this strange Lima. I bought the Sunday paper, read about the mayor’s impending recall election, watched a black cat cross my path in a city park, went to the “Parque del amor” with a giant statue of a couple locked in a passionate kiss and embrace, rode in a taxi which made up its own rules of circulation, ate real authentic ceviche, found out the difference between a llama and an alpaca, looked a Cuy square in the eyes, climbed to the top of a pyramid built almost two thousand years ago. I rather doubt I could have done much more before toppling over in exhaustion considering how little sleep I got last night–none. So Lima is complicated; I don’t understand how cars figure out who has the right away in this city. I love the coffee, which is very flavorful, but not at all bitter. Ceviche has a million textures, tastes, sauces. The people of Lima do what all people around the world do on their day off–go out and have a good time. The local buses are a mystery to me, especially what seem to be the suburban buses who pick up people in the center and take them out of the city. Nine tenths of the cars appear to be taxis. Now, it’s time for bed–great hotel, hot shower, and time to catch up on the writing, although I’m dead sure the second I stop moving, I’ll be asleep. Postscript update: the mayor survived her recall election by garnering 52% of the vote.

On Lima, Peru

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I am so glad I’ve finally come to Lima. I arrived this morning on the red-eye from Miami, and took off to see a pre-Inca ruin called Huaca Pucllana in the middle of the Miraflores township of Lima, which rises almost two hundred feet above the surrounding buildings. A huge mound of hand-made adobe bricks, the bricks are stacked vertically with space between them to fight the earthquake problem so common in this coastal city. This “pyramid” was totally unknown thirty years ago and three pre-Incan peoples occupied this sacred space. The people of Lima had collectively forgotten what it was and thought it was just a large, dusty (or muddy) hill in Miraflores. On a short tour we got to experience first hand all of the plants, fruits, and vegetables that the local people had eaten or sacrificed on this spot. We also got to meet, first hand, the famous Peruvian Cuy, Llamas, and Alpacas–live and in the flesh. Later, we went down to the ocean front to check out the beautiful Pacific before going to the most excellent ceviche lunch you have ever had. We stopped in at a sidewalk terrace for some well-deserved espressos afterward. Since there is no rest for the wicked or the foolish, we then got onto our tour bus to head downtown to the Plaza Mayor and check out the center of Lima. We visited (or observed from a distance) the city hall, the president’s mansion, the archbishop’s house, the cathedral, a Franciscan monastery (which had an enormously interesting bone pile underneath it), and the largest private museum of native indigenous artifacts that exists in Peru. We finally got back to the hotel for a bite of dinner around 7:30 p.m. Big thanks to Millennium Travel of Texas who had us controlled and directed from airport to hotel to Plaza Mayor to museum to the hotel. I was amazed at how kind the people are, how clean and wonderful the city is for a city of nine million souls. It’s not perfect, and no city is, but my experience was wonderful, having coffee, touring an ancient ruin, having ceviche, having a beverage down at the bay, walking the streets of this strange Lima. I bought the Sunday paper, read about the mayor’s impending recall election, watched a black cat cross my path in a city park, went to the “Parque del amor” with a giant statue of a couple locked in a passionate kiss and embrace, rode in a taxi which made up its own rules of circulation, ate real authentic ceviche, found out the difference between a llama and an alpaca, looked a Cuy square in the eyes, climbed to the top of a pyramid built almost two thousand years ago. I rather doubt I could have done much more before toppling over in exhaustion considering how little sleep I got last night–none. So Lima is complicated; I don’t understand how cars figure out who has the right away in this city. I love the coffee, which is very flavorful, but not at all bitter. Ceviche has a million textures, tastes, sauces. The people of Lima do what all people around the world do on their day off–go out and have a good time. The local buses are a mystery to me, especially what seem to be the suburban buses who pick up people in the center and take them out of the city. Nine tenths of the cars appear to be taxis. Now, it’s time for bed–great hotel, hot shower, and time to catch up on the writing, although I’m dead sure the second I stop moving, I’ll be asleep. Postscript update: the mayor survived her recall election by garnering 52% of the vote.

On going home

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What do you consider “home”? The place you grew up? Where you went to school? Or were you a wandering soul that never put down roots? “Home” is a very difficult concept to define with any kind of objectivity or certainty. I would love to idealize this all out of proportion, but that would be too easy. The truth of the matter is highly complex and chaotic. One can spend an inordinate amount of time in a place and never feel at home, but even just a few days might suffice to convince you that a new place is really where your heart is at. I think that home must have something to do with the heart or the soul or some other ephemeral and subjective criteria that is completely irrational and totally inexplicable. We know we are home when we get there, and we also know when we are long way from home. Perhaps the concept of home is forged in our hearts when we are young and impressionable, when we are vulnerable and need protecting, forged by a sturdy roof over our heads and a warm meal on the table where we are always welcome any time of the day or night. Or maybe it’s none of that. At some point in our lives we forge an identity, we come to recognize ourselves as proceeding from some place, and when asked where we are from, we name a place. We spend most of our lives leaving home, moving out, living far away, yearning for that comfort and safety that we felt as children when we were being watched over. The nostalgia we feel for home is never felt so keenly as when we most go to some place foreign for work or school or whatever avatars and caprices befall one in the normal course of a life. We spend all of our time trying to get away from home, remake our identifies as adults, take our philosophies new and unknown places, make a living, create a new home for our family in an unfamiliar setting. And we live our lives far away from our homes. I often get the feeling that contemporary society is less and less concerned with a person’s hometown, an idea which is being washed away by the increasing mobility of every level of society. Many, many people no longer identify any place as home, which makes me wonder, have we gained a more universal identity or have we lost something very essential, something important. Paradoxically, going home is a risky venture if there ever was one. One is a child at home, and as one moves away, one establishes a new identity, but as we go back, we put on our old clothes and become a child again. Of course, we also run the risk of realizing how small our home town really is, how short the buildings, how narrow the streets, how tiny was the house we grew up in. The nostalgic golden age of our youth probably never existed at all except as an over-idealized dream constructed in our minds in a moment of loneliness and dread when yearning for another time and place was easier than facing the cold, harsh realities of a new place. Going home will always force us to see the realities of our childhoods, for good or for bad, and we must examine who we think we are, which may be different than the constructed personality we present to the world on a daily basis. Going home is about facing our most base fears about our short-comings, our failings, our lost dreams. Yet going home can also be about the people who made us who we are today, who shaped us, who educated us, who raised us and put us the road to adulthood, who made us successful, who forged us in the flames of childhood, once and for all times, making us who we are today. Going home is about looking in a mirror, darkly, and taking a good, long look at the truth about ourselves, and that might not be entirely a bad thing at all.

On going home

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What do you consider “home”? The place you grew up? Where you went to school? Or were you a wandering soul that never put down roots? “Home” is a very difficult concept to define with any kind of objectivity or certainty. I would love to idealize this all out of proportion, but that would be too easy. The truth of the matter is highly complex and chaotic. One can spend an inordinate amount of time in a place and never feel at home, but even just a few days might suffice to convince you that a new place is really where your heart is at. I think that home must have something to do with the heart or the soul or some other ephemeral and subjective criteria that is completely irrational and totally inexplicable. We know we are home when we get there, and we also know when we are long way from home. Perhaps the concept of home is forged in our hearts when we are young and impressionable, when we are vulnerable and need protecting, forged by a sturdy roof over our heads and a warm meal on the table where we are always welcome any time of the day or night. Or maybe it’s none of that. At some point in our lives we forge an identity, we come to recognize ourselves as proceeding from some place, and when asked where we are from, we name a place. We spend most of our lives leaving home, moving out, living far away, yearning for that comfort and safety that we felt as children when we were being watched over. The nostalgia we feel for home is never felt so keenly as when we most go to some place foreign for work or school or whatever avatars and caprices befall one in the normal course of a life. We spend all of our time trying to get away from home, remake our identifies as adults, take our philosophies new and unknown places, make a living, create a new home for our family in an unfamiliar setting. And we live our lives far away from our homes. I often get the feeling that contemporary society is less and less concerned with a person’s hometown, an idea which is being washed away by the increasing mobility of every level of society. Many, many people no longer identify any place as home, which makes me wonder, have we gained a more universal identity or have we lost something very essential, something important. Paradoxically, going home is a risky venture if there ever was one. One is a child at home, and as one moves away, one establishes a new identity, but as we go back, we put on our old clothes and become a child again. Of course, we also run the risk of realizing how small our home town really is, how short the buildings, how narrow the streets, how tiny was the house we grew up in. The nostalgic golden age of our youth probably never existed at all except as an over-idealized dream constructed in our minds in a moment of loneliness and dread when yearning for another time and place was easier than facing the cold, harsh realities of a new place. Going home will always force us to see the realities of our childhoods, for good or for bad, and we must examine who we think we are, which may be different than the constructed personality we present to the world on a daily basis. Going home is about facing our most base fears about our short-comings, our failings, our lost dreams. Yet going home can also be about the people who made us who we are today, who shaped us, who educated us, who raised us and put us the road to adulthood, who made us successful, who forged us in the flames of childhood, once and for all times, making us who we are today. Going home is about looking in a mirror, darkly, and taking a good, long look at the truth about ourselves, and that might not be entirely a bad thing at all.