Nowhere Is Better Than Here

Rest assured, you are where you must be

‘Angelic Behavior’ — painted with acrylics

You know when you try a thing for the first time, and something in the recesses of your soul resonates so violently you know this is part of what you’re here to do?

Yeah, that’s what traveling felt like to me. When I traveled overseas for the first time, my heart sang in recognition. The strangeness, the novelty, the assault on my European senses, it all appealed to me. It’s the archetypal experience — uncertain, exciting, inspiring. Being alone on another patch of the world, having all your belongings in a carry-on, activates a nomadic memory. You remember that you used to roam.

You’re in unknown lands, immersed in new cultures, new landscapes, new people, new foods, new languages. All this freshness forces inspiration. And often, I found the synchronicities, magic, miracles cranked up a notch. You can’t help but imagine a playful intelligence at work.

One day, I might write an extensive love letter to traveling. It has caused me more pleasure and pain than any other activity. I have made more (mostly superficial, but some deep) friendships than I can count; I have found and lost love; I have milked experience to the best of my abilities, so that if I knew I were to die tomorrow, I’d salute and say thank you.

I still want to travel, but there’s a recognition that clearly removes its imagined status as an existential solution: Nowhere is better than here.

This statement is a trinity — three meanings that all cancel each other out.

The first and most obvious way to read that sentence is that here is best because you can’t be anywhere else. Even if you imagine yourself being somewhere else, you’re still here, imagining.

The second way to read this sentence collapses time and space into a single expression. Now + here is better than only here. You’re not just present spatially (here) but also temporally (now).

And the third way pulls the rug out underneath the first two. Being nowhere at all is better than being here. Here can only exist in relation to there. But when you try to locate yourself here, you will find that you are nowhere at all.

Let’s bring back some sentiment. Sure, sitting on a beach, enjoying an obscenely red sunset, sipping on a coconut may seem more attractive than sitting in your flat on a cold, rainy winter day, sipping lukewarm tea. But that is only if we’re caught up in the mind’s stories.

The sweetness of experience is found on a beach or in a foreign city, and it’s always found right where you are. You can only miss the sweetness if you believe thoughts that say it’s not here.

But presence isn’t the absence of thoughts. It’s in realizing that everything is right here and now — imagination might try to convince you that some things are somewhere else, but at closer inspection it proves the point. If anything exists at all, it can only be found now — not later, or partial, or elsewhere.

So there’s nowhere else to be. Truly, you can only be where you are, and that is now/here. This isn’t a metaphor or a way to soothe your weary being.

Only when mind rests upon the past or the future, or anywhere at all, is the belief created that there could be somewhere else to be. And this applies to location and to a more general sense of where you are in life/what your life looks like.

I can’t even begin to tell you how often I thought I was not where I should be, that somehow, somewhen I misstepped and walked down the wrong road. And every time, a whisper answered: Rest assured, you are where you must be. You can’t be anywhere else. And the moment you are somewhere else, you are still exactly where you must be.

You can criss-cross the planet, or the galaxy, or alternate dimensions, and yet you’re never moving one bit from where you reside. It might sound abstract, but be sure to check if it’s not concrete. Let every thought end with a question mark, descend and ascend into direct experience, and see what you see.

Where is your home when you stop thinking about it? You have it with you like a turtle or a snail. It’s always behind you but invisible. To see it, you must look back without turning around.

Nothing moves but mind. Everything moves, but you don’t. You move because you’re indiscernible from everything. A mind at rest doesn’t move.

What follows is a poem that enacts and dissolves this essay. It’s the same inquiry, but in a different language — less explanation, more feeling. But the essay stands on its own; the poem is optional.

I’m making it available to paid subscribers as an experiment in letting my work be supported directly by those who resonate with it.

If you’d like to continue, you’re very welcome.