we live on front porches and swing life away
This is a bit of a long entry, so pass by and skip or read at your own leisure.

It was sometime earlier in the day that I saw this real estate sign/advert., with the tagline being something along the lines of "Let's make the home that you'd want to live in forever--come in today!" And it made me think about that, and my own reaction to the idea.

It seems like such a normal, natural desire for everyone to have this or that place to call "my own", to carve out that niche and stake your flag in the western territories, and it is.

Yet I suppose that the desire itself doesn't appeal much to me at all. And that is a bit of a lie: because everybody does welcome the basic stability of having somewhere to make base camp at. It's that basic priority of security being met, that at the end of the day you've got somewhere that's yours, that's safe, that you can work around and live in, and conduct the shape of your life from there. Nobody, essentially, ever prefers the idea of being homeless.

But I don't have that "urge" to own or have anything of the sort permanently, or have the same dream... to be honest, when people start talking about 'homes they'd love to have', while I can be moved occasionally myself if I see a place that just truly looks nice and makes me dream a dream for half a second, most of the time I just don't give a damn at all underneath it all.

--

It's likely for this reason: I have not the same fascination with being able to look on an environment and say "this is mine", and then enjoy the possessing of it. The world is so large and vast and wide, to plunk yourself down in a little spot somewhere in America, or anywhere, is something that always makes me think of maps of Earth that are made from photographs shot out in space. Or sometimes looking at cells under microscopes: I know my own position along and beside everything else, so how is it that arranging a specified amount of space to my liking will be a thing to satisfy?

Frankly, I don't understand the people out there who seek a thing to make sure is "theirs" and, then, after procuring it, will bask in the sight... and they exist out there, in droves and multitudes. I do understand people however who, simply, enjoy and appreciate things they have or have gained, but with me, I don't feel very strongly even that urge to make my claim, but maybe that's because I'm not certain of what my claim ought be - if it happens that I should have the desire to make it, or not.

Another part of it may simply be the lack of a desire to be tied down to anything, however. I have no compelling compass directing me to invest, and by consequence possibly making a chain to any place/thing/person itself, and besides... who ever wants to think of living in one place, "forever"? I don't, but that's what everyone often does, for what reasons they have, financial or social, whether by the chains of necessity or their genuine freely willed choice. I don't like to stay with some things or to set my roots, as to me it's more advantageous on the surface - whether it is or not - to be free to not become stuck for the rest of your life.

Though really, it doesn't matter where you are, in a sense--so I'm not sure what it is I'm fighting. Geography itself - independent of what comes with the geography - is meaningless, more or less. And besides.. where you live is where you live, no more than that, surely, and double assuredly no less.

And everyone knows at some point in their life, that dear piece of happiness in being with the people, the situations, the places that lead them to hand over their personalized and tailored title of 'home' and make them -want- to be where they are, with the people they are.

They know it, whether or not they'd say they are "home" right now, whether or not it's something they actually have a desire for at the moment, whether or not past conceptions of this were in actuality correct or true and good, whether or not anything; it is there, in all people, unless they should be of the anti-social variety and totally lost. While people will paint very different pictures on their canvases, they will always paint them out of highly similar basic motivations when you look at and compare them, and those universal similarities are the basics of human life itself.

I suppose though that at the moment, in this particular curve in the road of my life, I haven't a clue at all what it is that I want, if there is anything that I especially want in those terms. I feel more often than anything like that person in a relationship who continuously has his foot mentally out the door, yet most of the time people who are in that frame of mind often will reason/assume/self-justify something similar to this: "It's because what is around me lacks what it takes to draw me in."

And without a doubt some places, some people you ought avoid, for the reason of it genuinely not being right, or safe, or even sensible. No matter how earnestly a real "fit" is stroven for, it may be a quest undertaken in vain. It is useless to stay in a place or in a situation if, in the end, it is something that truly you should leave, despite what everyone around you may openly say or otherwise communicate.

Yet just as often there's the unasked question, "Is this something indicative of my surroundings, or is it more indicative of myself? Am I right to want out, or is there something that ought be leading me back to these things and that I ought seek out? Am I obligated, or am I free to walk elsewhere?"

It's kind of like that line of dialogue in the Departed between Leonardo DiCaprio's character and his uncle, in the beginning of the movie when the two were speaking over Costigan's dying mother:

Uncle Ed: What's this I hear from Stephanie about you becoming a policeman?
Billy Costigan: You mean Stephanie, who was the only one who came to my father's funeral? That Stephanie?
Uncle Ed: Yeah, *that* Stepanie.
Billy Costigan: Nothing much to it, Uncle Edward.
Uncle Ed: Are you trying to prove something to the family?
Billy Costigan: When you say "the family," who do mean exactly? You?
Uncle Ed: You always have to question everything, don't you?
Billy Costigan: Maybe it would have done you some good to have some *questions* from time to time, you know? "Am I an asshole? Are my kids a mess?" I mean, those are questions, right? "Have I ever been good to my dying sister or am I just now pretending to be?"
Uncle Ed: Do you need some money for the funeral?
Billy Costigan: When my mother dies, we don't have any more connection.

--

I'm thinking it over though. I don't know if that lack of specific attachment is something to fix, or if it's something useable for good, or if I'm simply nosing around in the wrong areas and haven't found the right situation that calls. It can seem very 'smart' to not give your self, your whole self, your soul to certain things if they aren't a draw to you ...

..but at the same time I think people who walk the streets of life living that way, staying back from things they don't love without effort, secretly are unhappy for choosing or having to be cautious. And worser so is the fact if truly they never needed to be in the first place.

But again, some warning signs are wise to heed. It's your own life at your discretion, and there's nobody else to blame but yourself if you mess it all up. You have this one shot in the middle of it all here, and there aren't any takebacks, ever.