Point of Origin

This week I have been thinking about the concept of “Point of Origin!” I have been thinking about this because I have been filling out paper work to determine my summer travel plans. The form asks me to list my point of origin. The point at which something comes into existence or from which it derives or is derived. I came from Kingston, Ontario, Canada or for travel purpose the airport coded as YGK. On paper quite a simple question but as I listened to the celebratory gunfire of Kuwait National Day I couldn’t help but think how on many levels my point of origin has changed over the last several years. Yes, I am from Kingston, Ontario, Canada but I am not the same person that arrived here in 2008! I used to worry about the gunfire, now it has become a part of the celebration. Perhaps next year I won’t even consciously hear the gunfire anymore. It will fade into the background like all the other loud noises.

When you travel, when you choose to live, really live,  you learn or “upgrade” yourself. It changes who you are. Changes how you exist.  You can never actually go back to the point of origin. I recently told someone that as a writer I was “fearless”! My first year in Kuwait I enjoyed finding fearlessness again!

Now as I celebrate with the people of Kuwait this wonderful weekend, to recognize freedom from oppression, I can see how my fearlessness is starting to turn into a thoughtfulness. Kuwait is a country where the people are very interconnected.  It is an interesting question to consider when did we come into each others worlds or existence. I mean sure I got off the plane in Kuwait one day in August but when did I meet you? When did we have that point where we came into each others personal existence? When was our point of origin?

“There should be less talk. A preaching point is not a meeting point!”
What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone’s house. That says enough!”
-Mother Teresa-

“The growth of any craft depends on shared practice and honest dialogue among the people who do it.
We grow by private trial and error, to be sure — but our willingness to try, and fail, as individuals is severely limited
when we are not supported by a community that encourages such risks.”

– The Courage to Teach; Palmer, 1998, p. 144