Why feeling "at home" is dangerous...

Lately, I’ve been exploring the idea of home.

Most people who feel “at home” have a physical place where this is true for them.

Whether that’s a house, a city, or a country. When you ask someone where home is, that’s the typical response.

I guess in this context, the answer is Brazil for me.

Whenever I come back here, I get this overwhelming sensation throughout my body that this is where I “belong”. It's a joy to be here, to hear Portuguese, to feel familiarity with the music.

My soul feels happy.

A few weeks ago, I flew back to Brazil for the holidays. This time was no different. That same sense of belonging filled every ounce of my being.

So… home can be this physical location, but it’s usually referred to as home because of the feeling it gives you.

Does that make home a feeling?

And if feeling at home isn’t dependent on a location, how can we feel that regardless of where we are?

First, let's define that sensation of feeling at home.

For me, it’s a sense of comfort and belonging. While these sensations feel “good” and are usually associated with positive things, I find them potentially dangerous.

With comfort comes routine. With routine comes similarity. When I get too comfortable and a routine starts to develop, I usually have a mini existential crisis that I need to pursue change.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t grow as a person when I’m comfortable.

I need to go towards discomfort and challenging and new situations on purpose in order to open my mind to new possibilities and new ways of thinking.

Only then do I change.

If something scares me or makes me nervous, that’s usually a pretty good indicator that it’s time to try that thing out.

The subject of home has been on my mind a lot over the past decade. Since 18 years old, I haven’t had a physical home.

My Dad passed and I quickly went to college in a different state. After that, I moved to Portugal, then became a proper nomad with just a backpack and bounced around a lot of places… mainly Brazil.

When I was younger, not being able to call a place home made me a little bit sad.

But it also pushed me forward.

I didn’t have a specific place to “go back to", so I kept going on new adventures and pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

I grew in ways I could have never imagined.

Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s possible to feel at home wherever I am.

Home is a mental state.

And maybe that’s the goal... to feel at home wherever I am in the world, regardless of physical location.

I thought this for years… but then I recently dove deeper...

If feeling at home is feeling a sense of comfort and similarity, this is extremely dangerous for me.

When routine starts to take over my life, my soul gets sad. It’s how I’m built. There’s just too much beauty and adventure in the world for me to be doing the same thing in the same place for a significant amount of time. 6 months is usually my limit before I need a revamp.

For me, it’s necessary to feel “not at home” in order to grow.

I’m actually struggling with this right now with the van. I’ve driven from the United States to Panama, and the original idea was to continue throughout South America to Argentina then eventually into Brazil for a separate trip.

I built the van as a compromise. I was tired of living out of a backpack for so many years and wanted my own space, my own kitchen, a place for my stuff, a place to be - you guessed it - comfortable.

A physical home that I could take with me, not bound to any one location.

I thought that was the solution to all this home stuff, as if feeling at home was a problem to be solved.

Don't get me wrong... living out of a van was surreal for the first 5 months.

It wasn’t until after Baja, Mexico, that I started to feel less curious and awe-struck with the adventures I was going on.

Things became too routine, even if I was in a different place every other night. I wasn’t consistently growing. I felt stagnant. I feel stagnant.

The more I reflect on my thoughts around home, the more I’m starting to believe that not feeling at home is what I need to be working towards...

Purposefully putting myself in situations that I will be uncomfortable in.

In January or February of 2024, I should head back to Panama to pick up the van and put it on a boat headed somewhere.

I still haven’t decided where that somewhere is. Hopefully playing with the idea of home and comfort and exploration will provide some clarity soon. But I’ve found that clarity doesn’t like to be forced. 😜

I'm hoping to reignite that flame of excitement, and I believe that will come from pursuing discomfort and trying to feel not at home.

But I ultimately have no idea.

Life is just a big experiment.

I don’t have the answers (or even all the questions) surrounding this topic clear in my head, but those are my thoughts for now.

The purpose of this newsletter isn’t to have some super polished message to share. It’s more about sharing my raw thoughts with friends like you and having a conversation.

What are your thoughts on home? How do you feel about comfort? When are you able to thrive and grow as a person?

Have a kickass week,
Alex 🙃

[sent from hot and sunny Brazil 🇧🇷]