Episode 1: In search for the meaning of home—What is home to you?
We explore the meaning of home in today’s episode. When we leave home to embark on our journey, it is the place that we return to. In many ways it is like our anchor in the seas of life. And because home is a place where we feel most comfortable being ourselves, today we will be exploring the topic of what makes you feel most you… Who are you? And when we get lost in this messy jungle of life, how do we come home to ourselves?
Listen now:
In this episode of Super Soul Podcast, we will…
Explore what home means to us
Learn about the different definitions of home
Gain perspective through understanding the rite of passage
Redefine the meaning of home
Discover who you are
“Perhaps in the end, the question of “What is home to you?” is really just a guide to discovering who you really are.”
Full transcript below.
Welcome to our very first ever Super Soul podcasts! I’m so glad to have you here with me today. I’m opening this channel with the topic—What is home to you?—because home is a topic that is close and dear to our hearts. Home is both a tangible thing as well as an abstract concept. It is the place where we rest every night after a hard day’s work and one where we build relationships with the people closest to us. It is also where we feel most right, when we feel most ourselves—the place we feel the safest in the world. There is no one to judge us nor to tell us what to do. We can be ourselves with complete ease.
The topic of home is dear to all our hearts but even more dear, is that it is a road map of life. When we leave home to embark on our journey, it is the place that we return to. It gives us our bearings and leads us back whenever we get lost. In many ways it is like our anchor in the seas of life. And because home is a place where we feel most comfortable being ourselves, today we will be exploring the topic of what makes you feel most you… Who are you? And when we get lost in this messy jungle of life, how do we come home to ourselves?
I have moved more than 10 times in my life but more than moving, I have also travelled alot and lived overseas for extended periods of time. Everytime I go away and return home to Singapore, I feel like I see the city, that is supposed to be my home, in a new lens. You know the feeling like how after you’ve gone on a holiday and the moment you step home into Changi airport, the place feels strangely familiar yet not quite yet, almost like as if one is adjusting to two spaces. Because of the distinct difference between the place you were travelling in and the place you are returning to, there needs to be an adaptation to a new environment. It makes me think of those space movies when astronauts coming from space need to be decontaminated in a chamber before being allowed back on the spaceship. This adjustment process helps us acclimatise and redefine what home is to us.
In that sense, unlike people who have lived in one country or one home all their lives, I don’t have the same attachment to a place. Each of my travel stints really shift and redefine the meaning of home to me—why—because home is never the same when you return. But in alot of ways, it isn’t necessarily the home itself that has changed. It is I who have changed and grown. Everytime I leave and return, I see home from a new lens.
We often go away on holidays to get away from the mundane daily life. They are a temporary respite from the humdrum of life, and after the holidays are done, we go home. But for me, travelling is home itself. I wrote once, “Motion is home to me. I feel most at home when I am on a road trip.” My entire being and indeed my sense of home, is one that is on the move. Movement brings me a sense of calmness. That sense of discovery of new places, new things, new people is what makes me come alive. When I am doing what I love, is when I feel most at peace.
I often go camping in different countries and oftentimes alone. On one of my earlier trips, where I was still learning to feel comfortable being on the move, it dawned on me that I derived a sense of comfort from my tent. Because I was always on the move, my environment was always changing, the only constant was my tent. It was my familiar “space” wherever I went. It had my comfortable air bed, my side table, my books, my laptop and what have yous.
I suppose if a physical home is like a stable anchor for most people, my anchor would be the tent itself, or the car. Being often on the go for most part of two decades, it didn’t take too long to realise that, you know, hey, maybe home didn’t have to be a physical thing. And from an abstract point of view, the sentence, “Home is where the heart is”, really connects to me. In that sense, I feel at home anywhere I go. I feel comfortable and at ease. I feel at home in all places, but in no place at the same time, if that makes any sense.
It got me thinking about the significance people attach to the meaning of home and the relationship they have with it.
For many, home represents a physical place that they come home to, the address that they live in. It could be the type of housing, or the area. For those living in larger countries, people identify geographically, I’m from the West or the East. In more obvious cases, home is the country that one comes from. For example, we often say, I’m Singaporean or I’m Australian. These are more tangible representations of home.
Home can also be an intangible emotion. In one of my conversations with a friend about this topic, he further defines it, “It is my relationships with people I value, relationships that have developed over time in a material place. Simply put, to me Home is a real physical space that holds special significance to me because of the relationships I attached to it.” Being supported by the people we love brings a sense of homely safety. We could be anywhere in this world, but as long as we have the people we love close to us, that is more than enough.
For others, home could also represent an identity, the job and careers they hold, their achievements and so on. It could also be a belief system or a religion.
As I talk to more and more people, it makes me realise that home is defined by people as what is most important to them, and by extension, what is held to be most important and precious is exactly the journey they embark on and spend their life discovering. For someone who’s sense of home is defined by the connections they have, they would spend energy and time in developing their relationships with people. Perhaps for someone who’s sense of home is based on their careers, it would mean investing their life becoming successful in their jobs.
The story about home cannot be complete without the rite of passage. It is an important event that marks the transition of stages in one’s life, involving significant changes and growth of the arena that one chooses to grow in. Some life stages are adulthood and marriage which changes the way we look at life. But more than these obvious stages, a shift in the way we look at life itself can also be indirectly considered a life stage. (Re-elaborate) This could be due to certain life-changing experiences, a change in perspective, a releasing of our lenses and so on.
Recently, I watched a movie by Charlie Makesy titled The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse… It opens with a boy walking alone in the snow. He meets a mole who asks him, “What are you doing here?” The boy replies with two words, “I’m lost”. The mole tells him, “”An old mole once told me, “When you are lost, follow the river, and it will take you home.”” And they go on a journey of adventure along the river with two other companions, going through experiences that challenge their relationship, their sense of self and their purpose in life. Right at the end of the show, they finally found a village of lights and said their farewells. As the boy takes a few steps forwards, he stops in sudden realisation… and says, “Home isn’t always a place is it?”
And that’s partly what this story is about, that after spending all his effort to find a physical home, he comes to realise that maybe there is another way to look at it, you know, another way to look at life and what he believes to be true. The perspectives and the beliefs he had this whole time about what home was, was simply one version of the truth.
In that sense, we can never truly know what home is until we have left it and gone on our own rite of passage—where we venture out into the world and experience things contrary to what we are used to, which opens our eyes and helps us see things differently. Through the contrast and the ups and down, we put our current life into perspective and truly understand and see ourselves for who we are. It is like a moment of rebirth, of new insight not just about the world but also about ourselves.
And herein lies something most interesting, that in many ways, home is the place that we miss the most when we are away, on our rite of passage or even just on a holiday. More importantly, it is also the place that we think of returning to when we get lost in life because home is the place where we are found.
And in the end, perhaps the question of “What is home to you?”, is really just a guide to discovering who you are. Whatever journey we undergo transforms and redefines our entire sense of self, how we look at the world, what the meaning of life is. Things that we once thought were really important before becoming mere inconsequence. For example we often hear stories of successful career people like a financial trader recovering from an illness like cancer who then gives up their trading job to run a voluntary organisation for the needy. There are many other stories like this.
The struggles that we go through gives us an opportunity to discover a new version of ourselves that we never knew existed, that underneath all our outer layers of societal conditioning, crowning achievements, material possessions and all our stuffy, important beliefs, lies the real us. Because home isn’t a place where someone tells you what to be, to feel or to do. There is no need to be anything else other than what you are. It is the place where you allow yourself to be.
Even though the world may define our value based on our outer achievements and success, even though they may relate to us by the colour of our skin, our nationalities and so on, home is one place where no one, no society, no friends can tell you how to feel, think or act. It is the place that feels wholly, unapologetically you. Inside your home, you are present with yourself in all your nakedness, both glory and shame, and you feel safe within it. You are you.
And so, when you get lost, you just need to remember to come home to yourself.
One thing is for sure though, for me, despite my multiple journeys in trying to discover the real me, there is always yet another layer to be peeled off, one more identity, and for me, there’s where the fun lies. Maybe life is simply a journey of constantly discovering yourself and there is no end to that discovery. What would be the fun in life if there was?
And no matter how far away I go or how difficult my trials in life are, I know that I will always find my way home to myself. And that’s my realisation of what my life’s anchor is—myself.
And so I would like to end off my first podcast with three things that I would tell my younger self.
You have to leave home in order to really find it again
When times get difficult and you want to give up, know that you are exactly where you belong
Life is a constant discovery that when you think you have found the answer, there is still yet another layer to discover and that’s the fun of life!
Thank you for being here and for listening to my very first podcast.