early questions

so... I have some catching up to do. Two interesting concepts hit me when I first got here.

One is Distance. Well, actually it was Vonnegut, who's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater I was reading in my first days here. Reminded me of some other New York rich kid book (can somebody pleae remind me of the name. very famous?) the second time in Kenya, and reading Pakenham's Scramble for Africa just before at Enkosini. So on one hand you have contrast, on the other the opportunity to create a more intensive experience by reading how locals lived, the musical history, or whatever else tickles your fancy. Makes me think why we bother with the former at all? Truth is, I think (remind me to do a rant on the post-modern thing), if you take it beyond the old holiday book (which I am not really capable of anyway), that distance puts a subjective element into the moral evaluation, which you are not really bound to get at home. Of course you are still going to identify with characters etc. but you always do judge in relation to something, and here the contrast is so big that that something becomes like a disney film... totally fictional.

The second thought was, naturally as I dont have one, on Home. My dreamy stroll through Shoreditch (thanks Ems) in search for just the right place to have my things made me realise that I really dont need one. Travelling around as one is at the moment, we can make ourselves at home anywhere, maybe with the help of strangers such as Baas in Senegal momentarily. This raises a few interesting questions. Why do we think we need a home? Where does that urge come from? The comfort we get from security of home/lover/friends&family is a natural answer. But can't you get that another way? I am coming to believe that Home is just an old-age mothers wisdom that doesn't hold in the modern, global world any longer. Lets see how long I stay happy with that...