Going Home

Western culture tells us when we have a problem that we should keep moving forward and that moving forward equals moving away. As my professor said, perhaps western society's need to keep moving comes from the exile from Eden. We are told to wander and can never go home. Or perhaps it comes from the Puritans who came to this country to escape England's religious intolerance. (note: they did not come to a new land to be tolerant of other people's religion- they just wanted a place to practice their own without interference)

No matter what the cause, we equate moving away with moving forward. I would not live in Hastings again because in my mind, to move back home to where I grew up would mean I have not moved forward. I would still simply be at home. But perhaps this isn't true. Perhaps movement from one place to another simply hides our failures. We pack up and leave them behind.

The explorer in me whole heartedly disagrees with this conclusion. To move around the world is to broaden one's experience. I will meet more people, be introduced to more cultures, and have those experiences to compare to my home and the values I grew up with. I will be challenged by ideas and ways of life that are not my own.

Where is this coming from? In Native American Literature which is the focus of the class I am currently taking, home is the place you want to be. It allows you to look into not only your present, but also your past. My question is this: Is identity where you came from or is it what you become? In Native American literature, it is both. The people who you live with and grow with are vital and home is a place where one can explore their history and therefore understand the future.

I don't relate to this but there is something comforting about it. I would like to be so invested in my family history that it tells me who I am. My English roots. My Hungarian. My Irish. All of these things combining to create me and my identity. Instead, I am detached. I am none of those things, or simply happen to be them by chance. I must be cast out into the world to find who I am among strangers, and foreign places. I must explore the unknown to contrast my views with others. That is how I know myself- by comparing what I believe to the ways of other cultures. Home will teach me no more than it did when I grew up, or perhaps it would if I only let it. But for me, moving forward is moving away physically. My western mind knows no other way.