Standing your ground, gazing at clouds

Home, one of my perennial themes and the subject of that impressive, inclusive portrait one week ago today, was also Pico Iyer's recent TED topic. I tried to share it yesterday but it gave Blogger and Twitter the hiccups. I'm holding my breath and trying again, because this world traveler's thoughts about home are so congenial to a walker's sensibility. "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new sights but in looking with new eyes," which then make the old sights new again.



Iyer's cosmopolitanism hits, you could say, close to home. And home, you could also say, is the ground you stand without fear, threat, malice, or harm. "Movement is a fantastic privilege," but coming home puts it all in perspective.

And because one good TED Talk leads to another, here's an idle occupation you can enjoy on the road, with attentive care for your safety. But it's really best at home, in the hammock or on the pool float. Look up!

"It's such an aimless activity, you're not going to change the world by lying on your back and gazing off at the sky are you? It's a pointless activity. Which, is precisely why it's so important."

So much of what we do amounts to nothing. "Cloudspotting legitimizes doing nothing." This "nothing" is a delight, and a reminder that a house is not a home. Some of us are more at home with our heads in the clouds.

Aristophanes thought he was mocking Socrates. He didn't realize what he was missing.