Recently, I was chatting with Ed about things going on in our lives. I made what my friends will recognize as one my over-summarizing, pithy statements. He blogged my pithy statement and now I'm all-15-seconds for being wise.
My pithy statement was this:
Choosing where you live is a big part of living
Others of my friends can now criticize me for being self-referential.
So, the last few days I've been getting a lot of hits on this blog via Ed's because of this statement. Which has caused it to stick in my head. Which has caused me to mull over it.
During this time, Howard has been blogging up a storm about photos taken by UK Tube riders after the recent terrorist attacks. They are on Flickr and causing quite a stir. Concurrent with even this, also via Smartmobs, is We're Not Afraid -- a site where people graphically defy those who would seek to terrorize them.
Some are poignant, some are personal, some are funny. Here's a nice mixture of the three:
All images are distributed under a Creative Commons license. They are made to distribute, to repeat and spread the statements of the original creators.
But how does all this fit into the same post?
It seems to me it's our ability to make a choice regarding how we live. Where we live and why we live there. The moment we start to let external forces tell us where to live or how to live, we cease to have a Home and merely have a place to sleep.
The people in New York after 9-11, in Oklahoma City, in London, and certainly in Beiruit and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were given tangible and frightening reasons to leave. But they wouldn't let anyone destroy their Home.
We all experience Home in different ways. To some people it's a tangible place, like Ann Arbor, Michigan. To others it might be a group of people or a concept. And, of course, one probably has a variety of elements that make up "Home."
And choosing where you live is a big part of living. As individuals we all make that choice. The location of our Home. The characteristics of our Home. What we will and will not allow others to do in our Home.
People choose how to live their lives. These choices often have costs, but if we didn't make them as individuals, others would make them for us.
Note: I've posted about some of this further in this post.
Oversummarizing pity statements? You?
M just quit his job @ N, and we are just beginning (finally) the job of all of us really being here. The combination of technology, a village that promotes a lot of walking, that village's relative accessibility to other/larger places, a job that involves very public interaction with just enough protective distance, and a The Most Gregarious Child Ever makes for a very satisfying Home, really.
Posted by: Ann | 10 July 2005 at 14:07
Yes, you are generally the one that makes me insert such clauses...
Very glad things are satisfying. I was trying to work your choices in there but the post got really long.
In essence, Ann and I grew up in a small town in Nebraska that we couldn't wait to leave. But after years of large cities, she and her family decided they actually wanted a small town - just one on their terms. At first it was hard to accept that, but that's their choice for their Home.
I am relieved that M will no longer drive over the pass every day. That really freaked me out.
Posted by: Jim Benson | 10 July 2005 at 15:21
That's because you are a windbag. :)
Posted by: Ann | 10 July 2005 at 22:15