so: this is going to be a slow blog. It's purpose is much different from the fast blogs; i am uninterested in keeping a tally of my day-to-day affairs and thoughts (if that were a productive Human endeavor, then i think the brain would've been made much bigger than it is, or naturally incorporated a few biological equivalents of replaceable hard-drives). I am also uninterested in keeping a daily tally and analysis of events (at least for the moment i am, but perhaps someday that will change). Rather, this is my attempt to try and use the 'Net to reach out and find someone who thinks rather like i do.

You see, the oddest thing about being an Exile is not the loneliness, because the world is quite filled with lonely people. Many -- if not most -- of the urban, laboring families are, i think, quite lonely these days; and contrary to the popular estimation, most bourgeoisie are -- worldwide -- certifiably moreso. Rather, what is so interesting about being an exile is that there are so many of us, and yet our voices are all beyond the limits of human hearing. This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it one that is ever going to disappear. In fact, it will get much, much more pronounced as the years go by, this coming century; in fact, i think that in the end we will all be exiles.

The reasons and mechanisms behind the phenomenon are so commonplace and ubiquitous that they are easily overlooked; unfortunately, the magnitude of we exiles' number and power relative to settled, native peoples is exponentially greater today than it ever has been, so much so that it is easy to declare that today's situation is a new, uncanny development in human being (but too many people say that these days, and i am a more firm believer in "there is nothing new under the sun" than the converse). Nationalism has created a grand falsehood, that of "National Identity", that has permeated the world over and elevated to the status of Truth and "common sense" horrifying fears and prejudices that only hundreds of years ago would have been mostly rejected as foolish or inhumane.

I would say that mass literacy is the main culprit. In the last hundred years, the number of people who read and identify with enscribed doctrine has become so great that writing and reading are no longer looked upon as either remarkable or questionable, and so a great erosion has taken place: when talking about faith, belief, or religion there is no longer any meaning to the word "practical". The spiritual realm has become a vast echo chamber of poorly considered opinionsBureaucracy and centralization have become, in the popular discourse, synonymous with civilization and peace.

In addition to all of this, the march of technology and the permeation of the Scientific mythology through every nook of our lives has created instant communication, mind-bogglingly swift travel, and a linguistic space of virtual worlds that far outstrips the meager allotment most people have back here in our space-time reality. We have sports stadia, magazines, channels, and movies; romance novels, magazines, movies and talk-shows; educational institutions, documentaries, and professional societies; computers serve us virtual worlds, virtual communities, virtual discussions and virtual education -- and all of these various ways to pass our time and interests while we run our way towards the inevitable annihilation are overseen by these vast organizations of people we call "our own".

In any of this, the Exile does not participate.

The exile may try to gain entry, and the exile may hope to penetrate the satin exterior of settled locals, but to succeed means to cease one's exile. Once one is a part of the body of local culture one ceases to be an exile, and although some may speak of you as a "foreigner" there will yet be an acknowledgement that you are not so "foreign" as merely "different", and that only slightly.

But that rarely happens, and usually only to youth, or the very young, who are themselves already foreign -- and so already adapting -- to any and all adult society.

While "tourist" and "traveller" are close relatives to "foreigner" and "exile", they are yet categorically different. The exotic nature of the words' similarity masks their wide difference.

"Traveller" and "tourist" are basically words which describe ways of moving, and are distinguished mainly by degree. "Foreigner" and "exile", however, describe the comportment (or "identity", or "attitude" -- anyhow, something spiritual) of an individual to their surroundings.

Now, degrees of movement are simple, observable; it's obvious that travellers move more -- and more independently -- than tourists. But degrees of comportment? An "attitude" is immeasurable, and ripe for debate in ways that "traveller" and "tourist" never are. Attitudes can't be held, can't be seen, and can't be opened, so how can this one be "more" or "less" than that one?

But when we contrast "exiles" to "foreigners", there's still the sense that one is somehow "more" than the other. Now me, I'm a foreigner; this isn't some part of me, but instead an easy observation to make, because where i live is so entirely different from where i was born and raised, and the difference is ever-present: my mother-tounge is English, but i live in a place where the government and business and daily activities of the people around me aren't conducted in that tongue; when i interact with people, my motives are sometimes misunderstood, even when i strive for sincerity and transparency; sometimes children (and even adults!) are frightened by the color of my skin, or my hair, or how different i smell. Building on these things, there are the social implications of my foreignness: i don't share the same legal protections and political privileges as the people around me and i must use extraordinary means to develop even the least parcel of social authority amongst my neighbors.

Thus, saying that i'm a "foreigner" seems to say very little about me personally. It describes, instead, my place among the people around me. Exile, however, suggests that each one of those assertions above -- about authority, social acceptability, all of the exotic spice and crude insensitivity -- is somehow more: denser, stronger, more painful, more alienating, more troublesome, or whatever. "Exile" brings with it a taste of the tragic, and a sense of the diseased.

Offhandedly, i can't think of any time i've encountered the phrase "happy exile" (but that might be a product of my upbringing, back in the Good Ol' U.S.A.)^tm

Foreigner and Exile: the two aren't often distinguished, or not by most, and i think in today's world it's a difficult distinction to mark. It helps, perhaps, to consider all of the people who move: travellers, tourists, foreigners, and exiles. Although i'm strange that way, i always find the old, simple, "this and not that" way of speaking to be most helpful, and in this case it goes:

A traveller is not necessarily a foreigner, rarely an exile, and never a tourist, while a tourist is always a traveller, always a foreigner and never an exile. In contrast, a foreigner is sometimes an exile, sometimes a traveller, while an exile is often a traveller and usually a foreigner.

But i can understand how that might be a bit confusing.

Another way of saying the same thing is through stereotypes: a traveller can be a Gypsy or Badouin (neither of which are exiles) or a backpacker partying at Goa, but never Ma and Pa Jones (or Britney Paris and her Beau) out on vacation at Biarritz, or Acapulco: those are strictly tourists (although a lot of the backpacker's at Goa do aspire to the Hilton illusion of affluence, and so merit the name of tourists). Meanwhile, officers at the U.S. Embassy are always Foreigners but never exiles, while people like me -- who wander, and wind up living in a foreign place, or dividing our time between ye olde homelande and ye newe outelande -- we are exiles.

Rather great differences, and so i think it givees the name of the blog a rather broad arena to play in.

Personally, i've never had any use for tourists; they come and go, spend their money, take away little more than pictures and leave behind little besides their cash and their trash. I know most folks would love to travel more, but the tourist mode of travel i find unbearable and i can't find strong enough words by which to discourage it. Tourism is defined by its comfort: tourists travel to foreign countries not with the goal of interacting and experiencing a new, different world, but rather with a determination to remain comfortable and secure even as they are led through unfamiliar and misuderstood terrain. The whole setup is basically an illusion: the tourist looks out from their window at the hot desert surrounding, but remains inside where the air-conditioning keeps their climate at a steady 25.5 degrees.

Travellers, however, don't always sleep in the best possible hotel. They follow their nose -- not comfort -- and adventure -- not security -- and while they sometimes leave behind a mess, they can just as possibly leave behind fine memories and kind gifts. But to be a traveller, one must be willing to suffer the thousands of little things that can go wrong: dysentery, bedbugs, skipping meals, unpleasant delays, and the unpleasant people one is bound to eventually be bullied by, or the unpleasant misunderstandings which one is bound to eventually exacerbate. Travelling requires a thick skin and the will to submit to unpleasant distractions beyond one's control, and in our modern world there are few professionals who would consider travel an entertainment. More than that, travelling demands the ability to take one's personal faults without any of the disguising rationalizations we all use in our everyday life. Travelling is, then, quite the opposite of touring.

Foreigners and Exiles: this fits, and doesn't.

I am a foreigner, and an exile, but don't let those words mislead you. After fourteen years here, I am also an active part of my community. I participate -- limitedly, but with notable effect -- in government. I live in "their" language (and not in English), i play give-and-take with my neighbors, and i give -- personally, face-to-face -- smiles and satisfaction and goods and services at least as much as i take, at least enough to deny any abuse of my alien status, of the wealth and power i supposedly enjoy by virtue of my American birth. So how can i say i'm a foreigner? Nor an exile, really, because i'm comfortable with my life here, and as i sense things (though i can't really know), happiness seems easier here than it would be "back home". So in this way, the name fits -- and does not.

But then there's the problem of the plural: there is only one of me, but the name suggests many. It isn't presumption. As an established exile i happen to know a great many other foreigners and travellers. Sometimes I serve as a doorway for them, helping them to adapt and manage the strange ways of this land, whether or not they decide to settle. This a pleasure, a very great pleasure, freely given -- and because most leave within a year or two, and i am not the sort to correspond, our relationship ends when they return home. Thus, it turns out that for most of these fourteen years i have only known foreigners and exiles. So the name also fits.

It's not easy being a foreigner; i don't think i can repeat that often enough, because there are so many ways and places that it's forgotten. Too many Americans think of their exiles cynically, as people who have left behind a blessed land of wealth and freedom and opportunity to take advantage of less-informed, rather primitive and doomed peoples (unless, that is, the exile has moved to Europe, where they're mostly considered more sinfully indulgent than anything else).

If the exile in question has chosen to live some place like Mexico, or the Philippines (or Latin America, or the rest of Asia, or Africa, or basically anywhere else in the wide world, including Australia), then there is always the suspicion that some unforgivable sin is involved, something well beyond indulgence, perhaps something carnal. It may only be a suspicion, but it flavors every exchange, and before long becomes quite a stink.

Honestly, i sometimes encounter traces of the same suspicions in myself. Two years ago, for instance, i encountered on the 'Net a "successful" (as she described herself) American woman who lives in a Mexican resort-town. Rightly or wrongly, after our exchange i immediately suspected her of some wrong-doing. Perhaps the feeling was irresponsible; after all, i too am an exile, and a foreigner, and i know how the prejudice goes. Yet one could respond with the opposite assertion, as well -- i, too, am an exile, and a foreigner, and so who'd understand better what reasoning or behavior is sincere, and what isn't? The question could only be answered by examining her life and my reactions, and this log, this poly-log (better than a dia-log) might perhaps help provide an answer, or at least some guidance to a better question.

Thus, the name fits.

Except that here i arrive at another problem: i'll not restrict myself to words about foreigners and exiles. Even if i could i wouldn't try. I'm in this because it's fun, because it feels good, because i like to ask questions and i like to write (which has not always been true; nor reading...). There is no way i could restrict myself to rants about the small things of my personal life and remain interested. I have had too much time to mull over my life here, and there is much my freedom pushes to declare. So in these pages i will speak as critic, as judge, and as counsel; i will do so because, although i am a happy exile, and a content foreigner, i am also a native American, who sometimes longs for a distant home that has is obscured by my past, and seems to erode more quickly every year.