Where I'm At

I had a little moment of insight this evening. A little breakthrough. I was walking through my neighborhood alone on my way to dinner, frustrated about you name it, feeling pretty low about my present situation, simply ready be back home. It was dark outside as I walked through the alleys. My level of self-pity was amazing. It was like white noise in my head, and I was using it to block everything else out. I just wanted to go home, back to my parents’ house, sink into the couch, and be with people I love. And to be honest, it’s not like I was upset over some sort of overt injustice, unique to India. No, I was mostly just moping because my internet server had crashed, again.

Then a thought snuck through the static and into my head. I thought of a book I’ve read over a dozen times since I arrived here (it’s less than 40 pages). It’s called The Way of Man, by a Jewish philosopher named Martin Buber. “There is something,” he suggests, “that can only be found in one place. It is a great treasure, which may be called the fulfillment of existence. The place where this treasure can be found is the place on which one stands.”

A moment later, I saw it all quite clearly: going home, for me, has come to symbolize the same thing that going abroad symbolized before I left. That is, the solution to a lack of fulfillment.

Yes, of course that simplifies my reasons for going abroad. And going home. Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over here, it’s that I’ll only find fulfillment where I am. Otherwise, I’ll always be taking off to go somewhere new, to find fulfillment somewhere else, and it just doesn’t seem to work that way.