Get ready for a somewhat disjointed blob of thoughts that I wish to share. Now that I am back to school, I have to wake up early, go to bed early, do things on time, show up to meetings, cook meals, etc. Basically, I have to be a functioning adult again. Not that that is a bad thing, but I do have more responsibility than just waking up and feeding myself now.
This is good. It makes me think about the world, about where I am going, and where I want to go. I spent the last couple days looking at jobs in Alaska for the upcoming summer. I have mixed feelings about leaving home, and have changed my opinions often, but as of September 17th, 2019, here is what I think:
1. People should leave home for a while. It is so important to have a world view. Getting to know people who aren’t from your state is important. If I were the ruler of the world, I would require people to spend at least 6 months in an area that speaks a different language. Language shapes the way people think, and generally that gets a person a little farther away from home, and out of their comfort zone. It’s awkward to be conceited or prejudice when you are the only person from the USA in a foreign country.
2. People should go back to their homes. After learning about other cultures, being exposed to new ideas, and learning how to communicate with people when words aren’t second nature, you will come home with a new respect and love for the place you grew up in, the people who you care about, and the community you spent the first several years of your life building.
I realize that not everybody has a home–I know students who have never lived in a place for longer than 2 years, I know people who don’t have a positive relationship to any blood relatives, and I know people who just can’t stand going back to the place they grew up in. But wouldn’t every community be a little bit better if most of the people who left came back after a while and gave back to their own communities?
I haven’t thought though every possibility here, so I do not intend to offend anyone. These are simply thoughts I have been thinking about since I attended a lecture from a professor who is Ojibwe. He spoke about the importance of place in a way that I hadn’t thought about before. It is our job to give our children two things: wings and roots. I never thought much about the roots, but they seem more and more important the more I think about them,
