Sense of place

You are what you eat. They say you should have a balanced diet. You eat McDonalds every day for a few months and, aside from looking like a cross between a pizzaface and a fat cow, your liver is going to be 2 days away from going on strike. You should like your liver. Mix your food, eat some shite, but have some greenery with it. Easy.

So why, isn't that the same advice given with your sense of place?

You become the result of two people getting frisky one night, and arrive in whatever place your parent(s) decided you should drop into, so to speak. It's not as if there was a choice on your behalf. Nobody poked a note into a very private place and asked you your choice of home town. "Oh, I have a choice? Great. If you wouldn't mind bobbing down to Biarritz once you feel like you're about to blow a gasket. Don't forget the Dom Perignon.".

No. You arrive where you arrive. It might be solitary confinement, it might be worse, it might be Silloth.

There you are, a few years and lollipops later, and you're doing a good job of being entrenched in your place. It feels right, because it's THE place you're used to. You're in a bigger comfort zone than a Scientologist in Hollywood. Primary school is a blur, but a blur with the comfort of familairity. Those same faces, you (want to, or just do) punch year in and year out. Every year is like rolling over and feeling the cold bit of the duvet you've been searching for.

Here's a challenge. You stay there for ever, and you have two choices; you're either going to be happy, knowing your existance was maybe meaningful to you in some way, but about as eventful in the grand scheme of things as a grain of sand in the Sahara, or you make a change. Leave that comfort blanket and run headlong into something that challenges you more than a Rubik's cube where some evil bastard has been swapping the stickers around.

And the best bit is, there's no wrong answer. It's your sense of place. One Man's lifelong challenge is another's spent condom. If where you are is really keeping you fulfilled, stick with it and relax like a Not Guilty verdict at a murder trial. If you're not sure, feeling like you're missing something, don't hesitate. Run like the wind, take every chance, just don't get so old you're trying to remember your way to the library, just to read those books about the far flung places you should have fucked off to long ago.