Urban dictionary defines 'home' as a mnemonic device to remember the names of the Great Lakes.
I define 'home' as being the place that I am always wishing to be.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
That's just an obscure little phrase that I coined in the year 1860. It's okay if you've never heard it before, many people haven't. The simple truth of the phrase comes from our inherent and enduring want for "what we can't have". An interminable crack in the aalto vase that is human happiness.
It is not difficult to fathom an occasion in which this philosophy is apparent. One notable example may be when we find ourselves in a field and we see a field on the other side where the grass looks greener. But through tainted eyes our perception is one that is sullied by jealousy, or greed, or merely an overwhelming tendency towards general malcontent.
I try to keep this in mind when I find myself wanting to go home. I've wanted to go home for as long as I can remember. I have had a number of places to call home, and the home where I find myself at any given time never seems to be the home where I most want to be.
From the day I moved out of the house where I lived with my family, and the number of places I called home became duplicate, a gnawing dissatisfaction with whatever my current situation was began to plague me. Whether I was at my parents' house, my hall of residence, or at my flat, the persistent desire to go home arose as wherever I was currently residing seemed to pale in comparison to wherever I was not. In my eyes my other home transformed into an unattainable and mystical wonderland with window boxes of colourful flowers and a deer prancing around next to some artfully placed vines. But whenever I actually made the decision to visit the rose tinted home, I was faced with the harsh reality that I live in a crack den. Not the idyllic cottage from Sleeping Beauty.
Now I am further from my home than I have ever been. And my desire to go home is greater than ever before.
It is in times like these that I like to think of the iconic 'Alien' as portrayed by James Franco in the cinematic masterpiece / documentary that is Spring Breakers. Alien serves as a protagonist and oracle; the Gandalf of the film. He is effectively Gandhi, if Gandhi had dreadlocks, a grill, and a threesome with Vanessa Hudgens in a swimming pool.
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| Wisdom Personified |
When Selena Gomez starts to tire of the hoes and the debauchery that is her spring break, Alien profoundly states: "If you wanna go home you can go home, but then you're just gonna be home." Alien knows something that I am still attempting to understand. That the home that I imagine doesn't exist where I am looking for it. What does exist is a place that I have already been. A place that is probably no better than the place I am now.
And as for the 'home' that I am searching for to bring meaning and fulfillment into my life? It is unclear whether this is a place I have left, or one which I am yet to find. Or if home is truly "where the heart is", then perhaps I carry my home around in a cavity behind my rib cage.
More likely, the 'home' that we all wish for is intangible. A place which we will never discover. A reflection of the greed and dissatisfaction of our nature, engendering a festering unhappiness that mars the entirety of human experience.
The place in which we find ourselves is never where we most want to be. It is a cruel irony. But a greater affliction of society is the fact that the term 'irony' is only used correctly in 1 of every 5 uses. This is the real issue at hand.
