W dzisiejszym odcinku rozmawiamy o zjawisku migracji egzystencjonalnej i o wpływie długoterminowego mieszkania pomiędzy obcymi krajami na rozumienie “domu”. Wyjaśnimy też podłoże tęsknoty za pobytem w nowych miejscach. Wszystko na podstawie książki “The End of Belonging. Untold Stories of Leaving Home and the Psychology of Global Relocation” Grega Madisona.

Naszym zdaniem to swego rodzaju biblia dla nomadów – czytając ją miałem wrażenie, że autor zna mnie lepiej, niż ja sam 🙂

Existential migration is a term coined by Greg Madison (2006) in Existential Analysis, the journal of the Society for Existential Analysis. Madison’s term describes expatriates (voluntary emigrants) who supposedly have an “existential” motivation to travel, unlike economic migration, simple wanderlust, exile, or variations of forced migration. ‘Existential migration’ is conceived as a chosen attempt to express something fundamental about existence by leaving one’s homeland and becoming a foreigner.

Więcej o mojej rozmówczyni: Alicja aspiruje do bycia digital nomadką, brała udział w kilku projektach dla młodych osób i/lub studentów w Europie, przechodziła też przez pracę w korpo. Aktualnie pracuje dla portugalskiej firmy. Jest świeżą właścicielką vana, planuje niedługo ruszyć w podróż razem z psem.

https://www.instagram.com/alicjamiotk
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkEqRpxEMuM_jg0SUZzkgiQ

Inne cytaty

There may be a discrepancy between existential migration and being a global nomad. For example, existential migration signifies a deeply felt searching or yearning that expresses and addresses something in existence itself. The global nomad appears less purposive in his or her movement, more motivated by superficial curiosity and conventional values, tinged with the need to escape from but without the meaningful and self-reflective motivation evident in existential migration.

O rozwoju:

The stories of existential migration depict something within pulling the person forward, something that demands to be lived out. If we call this something a ‘self’, then this self forms as a personal response to our interactions in life. In the interviews, it is clear that a person’s environment has a crucial influence on the ability to develop. To a significant extent, the familiar home environment impinges upon one’s attempts to let a self unfold in its unique way. Therefore, existential migration can be a ‘self’ protective act in the sense that leaving constitutes a search for space where a self can unfold and respond more freely. Half of the voluntary migrants interviewed said they required a combination of space and relationship in order for their sense of self to develop, reminiscent of a respectful relationship with a good therapist.

For some voluntary migrants, the call to realize one’s potential overrides most other considerations, including the need to belong. In this sense, leaving home can be a ‘self-protective’ choice. Moving to a foreign place fosters flexibility to develop oneself according to an ‘inner call’, something that probably was not encouraged in the home environment.

“comfort is stagnation, and stagnation is death”

O definicji “domu”:

Among existential migrants there is a marked preference for the unfamiliar and foreign over the familiar conventional routines of the homeworld. As well as the new concept of existential migration, the research proposes a novel definition of home as interaction; that the ‘feeling of home’ arises from specific interactions with our surroundings that could potentially occur anywhere, at any time. This is in contrast to the usual definition of home as geographical place.

The interaction between these individuals and their environments shows that for some individuals the foreign place feels more like home. Sometimes the unfamiliar context can provide the longed-for interaction ‘homing’ and it is this felt interaction that serves as the sine qua non of what is referred to as home, no matter how temporary, no matter where.

O tendencji do poszukiwania nowych doświadczeń:

in order to label the motivations for migration, the psychoanalyst Michael Balint coined the term ‘ocnophilic’ for the tendency to hold onto what is certain and stable, and ‘philobatic’ to describe the tendency to seek out new and exciting experiences, situations, and places. Ocnophiles are characterized by their attachment to people, places, and objects and find it difficult to live alone. In contrast, philobats avoid ties and tend to live independently. They seek pleasure in adventures, voyages, new emotions, and are able to leave people and places behind without pain or sorrow. This theory has led some psychoanalysts to infer that ocnophiles have a pronounced affinity to remain rooted in their origins, abandoning them with difficulty. Philobats, in contrast, exhibit a tendency to migrate in pursuit of ‘undiscovered horizons and new experience’. These ideas are still based upon the assumption that the individual ideal is to be firmly rooted in a secure place.

O świadomym kreowaniu życia:

Self-creation must prevail over belonging, security, and certainty. Anything is worth sacrificing in order to maintain the freedom to choose for oneself. Conformity to the conventional is avoided at all costs – life is meaningless unless it is self-directed. Physical space is a prerequisite for the reflective space within which self-direction manifests. Encroachment upon one’s personal space elicits resistance and defence. The loss of freedom is deeply distressing, approximating the death of the ‘self’. To follow the call to independence, freedom and choice, one must trust one’s own voice, and have a degree of self-confidence. Moving to a foreign place and travelling internationally are archetypal situations for expressing the above needs. The challenge of unfamiliar situations offers the possibility of continuous development while the comfort of the familiar is felt as stagnation.
For some people the walls around the home are where the world ends – for others it’s where the world begins.

Kup książkę:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D4SLL76/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
https://www.gregmadison.net/existential-migration/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_migration