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Homesick?

I was reading an article in the New York Times the
other day with the title: “The New Globalist is Homesick” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/opinion/many-still-live-with-homesickness.html?pagewanted=all).
The illustration attached to the article is very powerful; it shows a group of
people, most likely a family, sitting
around what looks like a dinner table. An ordinary scene, except for the fact
that one of the diners is shown as an outline, or rather a shadow, giving us a
sense that he or she is there, but not really there.
The author of the article claims
is that, despite the fact that global mobility and the ideology that underpins
it (individuals can be at home anywhere in the world; mobility is beneficial
and therefore desirable) have become accepted as central to a globalized
economy, mobility comes at a high (psychological) price. Its devastating costs
are homesickness, displacement, even depression. We may delude ourselves by
discounting homesickness as a sort of rite of passage or by thinking that we can
remedy it with modern technology; but the evidence shows that homesickness does
not go away.
The author concludes that our ties to home are stronger than any cosmopolitan philosophy.
I suspect that many of you may have a different
opinion. Is the need for home – and by
extension homesickness – part of human nature? Is our belief that we can be
less homesick because we can Skype and email regularly with our loved ones only
an illusion; and do all these modern communication technologies only make our
sense of displacement worse?
Have a great weekend!
P.S. The Diary is taking a break, so there will be no
posts this coming week. I felt homesick and had to do something about it J.

2 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    I claim that I am no longer homesick since I live in the present and my moto is to get through the day.
    However, I was at the gym on Saturday and suddently I heard Arabic music and for the FIRST time in a long time, I had a tingle down my spine and I ran home asking my husband to travel to an Arab country or have an Arab experience- The response was negative (I am used to it) or to go on my own-

    I was set aback (he doesn't understand homesickness!) so I decided to go to a Lebanese film the next day- It just FELT GREAT! So in summary, I think that homesickness comes at a time when you least expect it- You either respond to it or you let it go…

  2. Homesick as described often requires a physical home… and the essence of the New Globalist is to have grown up and/or lived in different places, each of which shaped him/her. I wouldn't be who I am today without my Finland, my New York and my, yes, Greece… I am never homesick for those places, only sometime nostalgic, especially when I come back to visit after a long time. I AM homesick for my friends and family who are spread out all over the place (even my oldest child already!)

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