Et cetera - "On the meaning of home, the joy of traveling and the serenity of standing still"

In continuation of my earlier discussion about home leave, I want you to watch this TEDtalk video of Pico Iyer. Pico Iyer is a well-known author who writes about travel and culture and has himself traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the world as a man from many backgrounds. As a foreign service person, I can relate to his sentimets in this video about what home is. Many times I've thought while traveling, "Ah, this is nice, but I can't wait to be home (in my apartment)." And then there's times where I'm in my apartment in Shenyang and I go, "I miss home (Philadelphia)." And of course, there is always the feeling I get when I've been in one place for so long that I get an itchy sensation in my body to travel again, move places, and experience new things. The state of learning and exploring is also a kind of "home" for me, too.

Who knows where this wanderlust came from, but one thing remains the same: I find that the people in my life and the memories I have with them are ultimately what I call home, and those memories are kept and treasured deep inside of me.

Enjoy!

“It’s only by stopping the movement that you can see where to go. And it’s only by stepping out of your life and the world that you can see what you most deeply care about, and find a home.”

…

“Movement is a fantastic privilege and it allows us to do so much that our grandparents could never have dreamed of doing. But movement, ultimately, only has a meaning if you have a home to go back to. And home, in the end, is of course, not just a place where you sleep. It is the place where you stand.”