Reading Ideas

The other day I was reading some old stuff I had scribbled in a small notebook, and I found this: "home is what we call all the things that we need to convince ourselves of our own existence".

Maybe it sounds like a stupid idea, but if you think about it...
We work all day, maybe 8 hours a day. Maybe even more. What we call "work" is doing stuff for other people, solving other people's problems. Of course we do it for a fee. But the thing is, we don't see the immediate benefit of it.

Then maybe we study. Add to that first 8 hours some 4 more. Ok, granted, you should like what you study. I don't. Whay do I do it then? Because I need to approve certain courses before I can study what I really want to study. In the meantime, I just read about it myself from the internet. But I digress. The thing is I don't study for myself or for my own benefit. I study for the benefit of some future self.

And then I go home. And there things have meaning. What I do at home is not for the benefit of someone else, be it other people or my own future self. It is for my benefit, now. I can play games, read a book, write something, code a little. No matter what I do, I do it with pleasure. And feeling at peace with myself. And *that* is what I call home.

:wq

Very true. That idea of home also allows for places outside of your physical home, your house, to be home. A friend and I had a discussion along these lines once when we both realized that we frequently referred to our local climbing gym as 'home', as a place where we feel significant and alive for our own sake.

I'm about to leave my home for a while, I'm graduating next week and driving to El Paso to live for a while and work as a guide. That should be an interesting place to call home, though i wonder if with all my traveling in my vehicle I won't consider the vehicle home and not any actual place. Anyone have any take on that. A constant body in inconsistent places being home. Chuck Palahnuik had a story relating to that in Haunted. I'll elaborate after I get some other's ideas.

When you are climbing, climb, when you are resting, rest. -Arno Ilger