Stay Right Where You Are

Do you live in the town where you were born? Probably not. How come? Why did you leave home? Why did your parents leave, and why did your grandparents? Why, dammit? In my case, my grandparents left Ireland and Belarus in search of, respectively, more food and fewer Cossacks.

People move for different reasons, of course; sometimes you're out chasing a nice fat antelope, and you stumble on a valley so full of them that they stroll right up to you, slit their own throats, and leap into your cooking pot with a mouthful of bayleaf; sometimes you're smart enough to realize that those Mongols who burned down your village last year might drop by next spring to see if your daughter has hit puberty yet. But migration basically comes from saying to yourself "you know, it might actually be better over there".

About a year ago I watched a television special about a DNA search for our oldest common ancestor, which wound up travelling to the southern tip of Africa to a remote village where it seemed possible that our ancestral tree began to diverge into branches.

It struck me at the time that if they were right, we were looking at the only group of people in the world who weren't from somewhere else, and who had been content to stay pretty much where they were, in spite of any hardships which might have ocurred. In 30,000 years, there had to have been something. And I wondered if these people lacked a gene for wanderlust.

Now there's a new theory from the New York Times Best Ideas issue, which says basically the same thing: some people may be genetically predisposed to pull up stakes and try elsewhere; and we Americans may be the way we are (brash, impatient, thrill-hungry) because we represent the relatively recent coming together of all sorts of strands of people who have been migrating for thousands of years. In other words, it's in our DNA to be dissatisfied.

It makes sense to me.

I actually wrote a post about this earlier this year, where I ascribed the nuttiness of West Coasters to the fact that they've run out of new lands to migrate to and have headed to outer space instead (in their miiiinds).

I long ago accepted the fact that this humble website casts a monumental shadow over the New York Times, and it's flattering, of course, to see how often they approach my site, cap in hand, tugging on their forelocks, and bowing low enough to sign their name in the dirt with their long, erudite noses, in search of material and ideas.

I do not begrudge them the robust jewel of my knowledge. It's a precious gift which must be shared with all of humanity, in exchange for appropriate credit and monetary compensation. After reading the article several times, however, I see no reference to my groundbreaking work.

I may have to write a letter.

Comments

[sunnysider]

at least you don't have any illusions of grandeur, virgil.

[fritz the penguin]

I like wandering a lot. I wish I could fly. I'd go so far up in the air. Plus, there aren't any killer whales in space, so I'd have fewer anxiety attacks.

Fritz the Penguin