Today one of the people at my new job \u00a0who knows me best suggested I should line myself up for a transfer to Japan. “You would love it,” he said. “The culture,the experience! Living overseas is life-changing. And the most beautiful women in the world are in the Tokyo subway.”<\/p>\n
“No, in Venezuela,” his compatriot interjected. The two of them mention international cities the way you might refer to local restaurants. Caracas, Shanghai, Mexico City; wherever.<\/p>\n
“I already turned down an opportunity to live in Charlotte,” I said. He stared at me in wonderment, as his compatriot had when learning the same thing earlier.<\/p>\n
“Why would you not go?” he asked.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t want to be that far from my family.”<\/p>\n
“Nothing lasts forever!” he said.<\/p>\n
“I know,” I said. “That’s why you should enjoy it while it lasts.”<\/p>\n
The world is wide and rich, so rich; you can never have it all. True wealth is not having so much, but appreciating what you have. By this measure I am still poor; but I doubt traveling would help. It is a kind of counterfeit. You experience so much, but then you know so little. I am using that archaic, Biblical sense of knowing, which is much the same as loving. Can you love a place because you showed up there and had your picture taken? Both these gentlemen, my friends and mentors, are far more cosmopolitan than I. And there are different aptitudes. But I cannot reconcile a fondness for everything with a love for anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today one of the people at my new job \u00a0who knows me best suggested I should line myself up for a transfer to Japan. “You would love it,” he said. “The culture,the experience! Living overseas is life-changing. And the most beautiful women in the world are in the Tokyo subway.” “No, in Venezuela,” his compatriot interjected. The two of them Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cleverdialectic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}