Home (n)
1. A place where one lives; a residence.
2. A dwelling place together with the family or social unit that occupies it; a household.
3. An environment offering security and happiness.
4. A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin.
5. The place, such as a country or town, where one was born or has lived for a long period.
6. The place where something is discovered, founded, developed, or promoted; a source.

From www.dictionary.com alone, we can see the multitude of meanings for the word Home.

Of course, this single word can also mean a lot more than its literary value.
It is a word that, for each individual, can symbolize good or bad, love or loathing, fond or forgetful memories, security or chaos, comfort or discomfort.
One thing that does remain constant though, is that the meaning of this word comes from our emotive state more than from anywhere else.
Even for those who say, “I have no home…” it still hits and draws it’s meaning out of a little place in our brains called the amygdala ; our emotional starting line.

For most of the African Digerati, TCK’s, Military brats and others, asking the question of where they are from, or where home is, will often times bring about a blank look for a second or two followed by quite a dissertation of their life’s travels, all the while not really answering the question.

Some wanderer’s have learned the value of family, where home is represented by ‘h’ and where the family happens to be or get together is represented by ‘f’, they live by the equation of:
h = f

Other wanderer’s, with an established time-frame spent in a particular location such as a boarding school, city or country outside of their citizenship, will remain loyal to that local for life, whether their familial ties have remained or not, which is represented by ‘l’, and adopt the equation of:
h = l
(I impose here that l will often contain the associations and friends that were had while physically at l, therefore l should include non-family associations as well).

While still other’s have found value in both equations, where the both sides remain constant allowing life to be lived according to
h = f + l

Then there are those who, despite all of life’s experiences, choose to adapt and assimilate to such a point that despite f and l, h = c, where ‘c’ represents their current living surroundings which often involve their own families, careers and housing investments.

Of course, there are many variables that can be introduced, such as overall good or overall bad experiences away from their citizenship, which could be represented as ‘g’ or ‘b’ accordingly and hence produce more detailed equations and the beginnings of common trends, such as:

If f = b, then h does not = f
OR
If f = g, then h can sometimes = f
OR
If f = g AND l = g, then we begin to see h = f + l
and this could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Another variable that can be introduced is the variable of post l cultural adjustments, or culture shock.
As most who live abroad will return to their country of citizenship for further education or for economic or even familial reasons, there will inevitably be a period of time most commonly known as culture shock, which can be represented by ’s’.
We do find that if s = g, then h begins to more and more equal c, but since this occurrence is such the minority, let us look at s = b.

In the s = b scenario, we begin to see how important the g or b of l becomes.

Because the s variable plays an important role in the beginning of adult life, if l = b then often times the immediate future of this recent adult can be drastically depressing, especially of f = b as well, in which the individual has no familial infrastructure to fall back on.
If l = g, then s will often = b as well, though not to the extent as if l were to = b, because there remains in the individual the constant desire to return to l, making h = l at that time in their life.

Let us not forget the abundance of additional (and key) players such as a person’s spiritual state (sp), love interests most often left behind (li), whether or not leaving l and entering s with or without f, or even frequent returns to l (frl), which may have been good or bad, or whether one has remained in contact with old friends or classmates (cof) , and on and on and on we go…in other words, this can get very detailed to the point of unreadability, such as:

h = f (g) + l(g) - s(b - f) + sp(g and b) + li/(g + b) + 2frl(g) +6cof, etc., etc., etc….

Of course, this is all being written as some sort of mathematical theory, where 1 + 1 = 2, but because within each ‘1′ there are multiple variables that equal more than 1, we say 1 + 1 > 2, and what we have forgotten on this slight tangent is that
h = e,
where ‘e’ represents the emotional value of such a word as ‘Home’,
which, in all honesty cannot really be contained by any sort of constant or variable or any set value at all because it is both and all, and measuring the value, or how h is valued, is like trying to mathematically prove that I love my wife, when all we have is circumstantial evidence, and nothing definitive aside from an emotion to emotion connection with her.
Now, I could show how my love (ml) is shown by a back rub (br), or some roses (ro), or sacrificing a smoke - sm - (every once in a while) by showing her:

ml=br+ro-sm

but it really won’t mean anything to her, unless I tell her, “I love you”.

So, therefore, forget all that has been written thus far, and lets get back to the issue at hand.
What is home to you?
As I write this, I am preparing to embark upon an adventure, back to where my adventures really got started, to Africa.
The anticipation I feel is leaving me with quite a bit of excitement and enthusiasm for what I am hoping to be a return to the old watering hole, where friends are there to greet me.
I guess you could say of me:
h = (all the above).

You?

p.s. you can blame cryptonomicon for this exegesis…

This entry was posted on Monday, March 20th, 2006 at 9:01 am and is filed under Front. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.