Who am I

We tend to define ourselves by our national identities.  Well that's not exactly correct.  I think first comes sex, then race and then national identity.  It is like we are members of a club.  Perhaps it makes us feel exclusive in some way and lord knows human beings like to feel exclusive.  We long to be in some way unique and a nation is undeniably unique and exclusive in its very nature.

I have traveled and lived in many parts of the globe and as the years have turned I have come

to view myself less as a member of a country and more as a citizen of the world.  The concept of humanity becomes much larger and all encompassing.   A citizen of the world is an alien concept to most.  It defies everything we have been taught all our lives of what it means to be a patriot.  Patriotism, the connotation of the word denotes unquestionable loyalty to a national identity.  The very essence of patriotism defies our biological similarity and harkens back to tribalism.   Perhaps it is the result of eons of tribalism culminating in an ultimate tribe of in the case

of America, 321 million people or China, well over a billion. Still patriotism as defined by the host as a good thing.   People celebrate the concept and declare national days off commemoration.  At the same time we look out our window at the patriotism of others and are often frightened by it.  We label them fanatics and unfriendly. 

The more I have traveled the more I have learned that I am not different than other human beings, in fact, I have discovered we are very much the same.  We live, we breath, we hurt, we love.  Sure the minute details of day to day existence might be different but in reality we are the same people living similar lives as those that came before for the last 6,000 years.

As I walk now through life I use this almost as a guiding philosophy.  It is one that at its root, has made my separation from my native land not as difficult as it might be for most. I like to think that in some way I am moving beyond tribalism into a new and very different reality.  One that defies a simple label and instead endeavors to embrace rather than divide.

I am but a sole voice in this effort.  I doubt there are many who share my seemingly altered state of reality.  Still, I also like to think that perhaps our minds can grow beyond the simplistic world we live in defined by the invisible boundaries of our own tribe.

Our world is big yet miniscule at the same time.  Big in the sense that the vast majority of us will never move beyond our limited worlds.  Like a mosquito we will fly around our territory for the duration of our lives.   Still there are others of us who like the migrating Arctic Tern or the Monarch
Butterfly, will cross vast sections of the planet and discover that the human creation of boundaries and governments mean little in the overall scope of our existence.