The Theoretical Distance Quotient – A Review

The farther you go from home, the less specific you’re able to be when you tell someone where you’re from. I cannot tell the average New Yorker I am from Murrieta. I cannot tell the average New Yorker, I am from the Inland Empire. I cannot tell the average New Yorker I am from Riverside County. I can, however, tell the average New Yorker I am from Southern California. I can tell that to just about anyone in North America and expect a reasonable understanding.

There is no made formula that discerns the tiers of how much distance allows for your answer to the question “where are you from" to be “recognizable.” But there is a general understanding, based on the cultural significance/outreach of your location, that as you progress linearly outward, you too have to broaden your answer to the question.

The same is unsurprisingly true of the opposite. When one asks, “where are you going?” You don’t need to give a specific answer, so long as you’re not needing to be there within the hour. Whereas the original theory of “recognizable distance” causes the asker to be confused, giving a specific answer to something in the distance makes the answerer unrecognizable, there are just too many variables to consider. How could you know what you want?

This is all just a fancy way to say, it’s okay to not know where you’re going, so long as you’re not in a hurry to get anywhere.

I don’t see myself sitting still for much of my life. But I also don’t have a five-year plan. I’ve been enticed with promises that seem grand, but require a back-breaking amount of labor for pay that just doesn’t quite get me there, and that makes me want to leave again. Wanderlust is a reasonable explanation, but I also think there’s just too much learning for me to do, and not enough distance to make it recognizable.

So, I’m trying to close the gap, but I’m not exactly sure how anymore. I haven’t found out if the distance I need to travel is tangible, emotional, physical, or mental. I haven’t exactly answered the burning questions in my heart, what is love? How do I find closure? Where do the ducks go, etc. But what I have found, are friends. People I care about. And I don’t know, maybe they have my answers, maybe they just are companions on our silent quests to fill what might just be a void.

But then again. Who am I to hazard a guess?

I was told today, that I mean well. That I do well. And that I try. But all that means very little, when I don’t take a moment for myself. And it’s true, I have tended to complicate my life by conflating it with the needs of others. I make their needs mine, and I work them, and then, once all is clear, and needs have been met, things grow cold.

And in that coldness the void seems realer than not.

So maybe, we are all too distant from where we are really from, so distant that even we have come to believe we are from the small town, the city, the county, the state, or the country. Maybe we have walked too far to know that we are truly from some bright darkness. Maybe this is the lesson we all end up learning.

Maybe it’s the one I am running from.

Or maybe, it’s 11pm on a Sunday, and I’m bored and alone, and thinking about things too much.

So, I’ve taken some necessary precautions. Some steps to hold my own ideas above the water of everyone else. I’ve developed a hand-written procedure that outlines the possible problems, solutions, and directions I will follow in order to best meet the results I hope for. And it all involves me, just being me. Not someone from somewhere. Just the me I can meet in the mornings and be proud of.  

Thanks for reading. This blog comes from a better place than it might seem. I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve done it quickly. I’m just now finally catching up on what I already know.

Have a great week, and happy holidays!