Where Is Home? | Pico Iyer | TED

More and more people worldwide are living in countries not considered their own. Writer Pico Iyer -- who himself has three or four "origins" -- meditates on the meaning of home, the joy of traveling and the serenity of standing still.
Learn how to make your travels truly transformative in Pico Iyer’s upcoming TED Course “How to take a life-changing journey.” You’ll learn how to set an intention and choose a destination, how to make the most out of your arrival and be fully present while you travel, how to navigate cultural differences and how to live differently when you return home. Enroll now: tedtalks.social/3aO9LQl
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Pinned by TED Learn how to make your travels truly transformative in Pico Iyer’s upcoming TED Course “How to take a life-changing journey.” You’ll learn how to set an intention and choose a destination, how to make the most out of your arrival and be fully present while you travel, how to navigate cultural differences and how to live differently when you return home. Enroll now: tedtalks.social/3aO9LQl

[@alzm-du3ov]

ㅁ

[@sameer137]

Home is where your wifi connects automatically.

[@clarkmilan9759]

Sorry to be so offtopic but does any of you know of a way to get back into an Instagram account? I somehow forgot the account password. I appreciate any help you can give me.

[@salvadorharrison397]

@Clark Milan Instablaster =)

[@clarkmilan9759]

@Salvador Harrison thanks for your reply. I got to the site through google and im trying it out atm. Looks like it's gonna take quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.

[@clarkmilan9759]

@Salvador Harrison It did the trick and I finally got access to my account again. I'm so happy! Thanks so much you saved my account !

[@salvadorharrison397]

@Clark Milan glad I could help xD

[@amitnagpal1985]

"HOME is where all your attempts to escape cease" - Naguib Mahfouz

[@fatimaal-hashimi9991]

Beautiful quote. Thanks for sharing :)

[@mohamederi8734]

+amit nag pal " A man's home is not where was born, but the place where all his attempts to escape ends". Actually Omar Taher who said that. still Egyptian tho.

[@freakindream]

wow, that's good.

[@stephaniericano8004]

or begin haha

[@chricellwhitney5032]

This hits me square in the chest. I left 'home' a while now and something in me is aching for a sense of 'home'....to belong to somewhere or something ...for a sense of stillness and to be absolutely sure of where I'm coming from, where/what I belong to.....this is so real to me #touched

[@taylorwhyte2187]

I was born canadian and raised in the southern US. When i moved back to Toronto it slapped me back into consciousness. It made me more aware and tolerant. Then i moved back to the south and it was horrifying how scary how people who are unconscious actually are. Its make me feel horrible how this world has become even though we're more united than we know. Awareness and erasing ignorance can create peace and happiness! We are one and everyone needs to realize this!

[@davidray1866]

Dwight Johnson, the man who took Pico to the monastery, took me and my high school philosophy club to that same monastery when I was 15. It was amazing.

[@CruzzioXT]

This guy is an amazing speaker. And I really loved the message.

[@castrocyrax]

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Mr. Iyer home is ME ! home is everything dear i hold inside, HOME is just....my perception, my attitude towards life, the things i appreciate and the good rapport i have with the ppl around me. home are the the beautiful things, the kind people, nature and animals and the awe inspiring creations that i may find in any geographic location, HOME is in my head. you can easily be an alien in your own "country" !!

[@gordonfrancis5966]

I love the sound of the hermitage. The wonderful feeling of stillness and tranquillity.

[@paolavitali1008]

What a wonderful man, so eloquent. He's a writer known for his travel writing, I'm gonna read some of his books.

[@Yizak]

Incredible talk. He has some sort of enthusiasm that could keep me listening for hours.

[@vernonpilgrim5534]

Good, comforting words for Permanent Exiles, by choice, like myself. Being one is more like an attitude than a way of life, the latter is secondary to it. I have found that things often happen by chance, and the path is taken, or not, and it doesn't really matter! You are home where you stand.

[@ngocchaunguyen8685]

Just read the article "Nowhere Man" by him. This speech is such a nice combination with his writing.

[@TedFrancis]

I heard a beautiful line recently: Home is the consciousness of good.

[@TeQuiiLaSHoTZz]

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. - Thomas Paine

[@nuvamusic]

He touches two points. One, the fact of having multi-ethnic, cultural background and having lived in different countries. So you're not belonging to any country in particular, but a citizen of the world, with a wider perspective of things. He had the privilege of education and the ability to travel around. Then he talks about the physical home, it didn't seem to affect him that much when he lost it to the fire, and he could just as well call 'home' a place where he could find himself...

[@cutejassy]

This might be my favorite talk yet.

[@DimityGirl]

I am a half Malaysian half English from Hong Kong currently living in London. This TED Talk makes so much sense to me.

[@goosegod6]

Very nice talk, he is right, stillness brings insight, wisdom and self knowing. The truth is not out there, it is inside...your heart.

[@sabaidris6930]

I'm glad I came across your talk. I was thinking recently about the shallowness of home and the fallacy behind homeland. They matter of course. But mostly they are more than what we take them to be.

[@egidaprecious-juliet5562]

This was deep and i had to reflect and i tell you, the definition of HOME for me has changed.

[@DreamDestinations100]

home is where the heart is at the very moment. As a global citizen myself I totally get what he is saying! Also a lot of times it's home is more than the material world - it's in the stillness of the true space within each of us.

[@nehapawar1644]

I could quote this whole talk 🙏

[@JimmyXie]

This is absolutely amazing!! Identity crisis is something I am facing now too.

[@MarcelleAllen]

Where is home? Where will we stand? I love how his experience brings up powerful questions and ideas for me. It's very true that no matter where we go, there we are and the better we can be, the better we can stand.

[@HupraNET]

Best Ted i've ever watched!

[@Sluchen]

"where you come from now is much less important than where you are going"

[@aikoyonamine]

This resonates so much in me. Gratified by your sharing.

[@runmvp]

Home is where your heart is !

[@venkateshdas7312]

Well said Mr.Pico.......Really nice thought about the HOME......

[@NicKleemann]

Great question - interesting answer.

[@mathjb94]

Fantastic talk, thank you!

[@instormental]

A wonderful talk. Also mr. Iyer has a beautiful voice, I hope he voices some books I can hear :)

[@nicolaicustodio8731]

Beautiful.

[@970588]

Wow I really relate to this. I have both senegalese and french nationalities and Im moving from canada to holland. My immediate family lives in spain.

[@DandresNarr]

Just Beautiful!

[@JJ-qz5gv]

Riveted when he began talking about the Catholic Hermitage. Stillness. Nourishment for the soul.

[@UsernameNULL755]

marvelous ted talk

[@allyfassi5938]

Thank you for this video

[@pvsk10]

Home is where the heart is!

[@EscherSketcher]

Amazing talk.

[@Kcimor78]

Amazing!!!

[@rebekahstuck9949]

"movement is only as good as the sense of stillness that you could bring to it to bring it into perspective"

[@URSskingdomh]

LOVE!

[@CorpseTongji]

I really like this guy.

[@TheDexeter]

He sounds like the Dunmer in the opening of Oblivion. By the nine divines!

[@CruzzioXT]

There is much truth in this. I don't have much stuff, but I do have a laptop. Wherever I go, it goes with me. It's pretty much like a portable home, and my whole life is stored on this thing or in the internet. Home is not where your stuff is, home is where you achieve your full potential.

[@hallys6833]

Such a fantastic speach

[@jewelharris7168]

Beautiful profound

[@painexotic3757]

This inspired me to buy his book! I feel the same way, except I have only lived in one city my entire life. Having traveled around the city to different neighborhoods and connecting with dozens of people through the internet, I feel like this has had a drastic impact on my personality. I've got internet friends (and have met people) from all over the world and even across the country through the internet: Canada, israel, the united kingdom, brazil, etc to just name a few. And because of the internet, people in general, are becoming more globalized. Nowadays, you have white suburban kids listening to gangsta rap, portraying themselves to be "hardcore" because of how popular it is amongst young people. You have people in the UK or other European nations using american slang because of music or what they saw in our movies. It's crazy how the internet has globalized the world and how influential it is on younger generations. Older people don't seem to realize how impactful it is... How someone from Germany or Russia or China can connect with someone from America or Canada or Japan, etc, yet never having stepped a foot there in their lives...

[@kcjiladolfo9199]

AMAZING

[@AtheerAl]

amazing..

[@DianaDaBestUnicorn]

This is awesome

[@trinisuprazee]

I was born in Edmonton Alberta, grew up in Trinidad and Tobago, attended middle school in Toronto, Canada and undergrad in Columbus, Ohio. I don't feel like anywhere is my home but have an insatiable appetite for travelling because of my upbringing.

[@mgmail7279]

Different places than you but same story. Only annoying thing is answering the question: where are you from. Many people don't seem to accept our truths!

[@daDuke42]

very well said

[@tothestars101]

Toronto is an amazing city.

[@neer1855]

So the Silence & Stillness can be the paths to get you back to your Home.

[@DemiDopamine]

as a vagabond this is comforting. someone understands.

[@amadangelandme]

I have always felt that I belong to no country in specific, but at the same time to all of them in general. That, to me, is home.

[@bruv5356]

this is life changing oh my lordy lord hooray

[@KiwiFuel]

Home is where I poop most comfortably.

[@logicalaadmi2720]

I am, i went to, I learnt, I'm not saying, I , I, I, I, I . Great speech..!!

[@corryng2710]

***** I completely agree with you and I think the only way to end all the world's problems is to embrace everyone's differences, as you say, and see everyone as 'us' instead of 'them' as we are all, ultimately, a citizen of the world. I feel privileged to be one of the many global citizens in the world who don't have a definite nation home and thus can succumb to the feeling of, "I don't have a home, so everywhere and everyone shall be my home". This TED talk is a compilation of the many things I've always thought about and wondered if anyone out there felt the same and now i know there are many. Maybe we should all be connected somehow to get to know each other and share our ideas and from that, be able to grow more. As the saying goes, one man had a dollar and another man had a dollar. they swapped and they still have a dollar. one man had an idea and another man had an idea. they swapped and now they each have two ideas.

[@teknotexan]

"Where are you from?" : a question I wrestle with every time it is asked. I find solace in friendships with non-Americans b/c though I like living in California, it does not feel like home.

[@mgmail7279]

You should open your mind more. Not all Americans are "from" someplace nor one culture - just as Pico says here.

[@ohudsaud4265]

Certainly, we have more complicated answers than before !

[@ShawnRavenfire]

I find that more and more, these days, my "home" is becoming online. This is where my family and friends are, my collection of books and movies, my money, my work... I carry almost everything that I have in a small device in my pocket which picks up wifi signals. My apartment is quickly becoming nothing but a place to sleep and hang my clothes.

[@gnawershreth]

The only thing I'm a bit worried about when it comes to this kind of Utopian "We're all one!" type stuff is that all the different cultures, traditions etc. will be lost. At that point there will never be a single reason to ever travel again. Why would you bother if it's all just a bland mix of everything? I enjoy seeing French culture in France, Norwegian culture in Norway, Japanese culture in Japan, Vietnamese culture in Vietnam, Kenyan culture in Kenya, Peruvian culture in Peru etc. Losing them would be tragic in my opinion, and I fear that this "homeless" kind of people he's talking about would lead to that. If there's no longer anyone calling themselves Scottish or Moroccan then there's no Scottish or Moroccan culture left. I don't see how that could possibly be a good thing. :(

[@awrad8078]

I never looked at it that way, but I can understand.

[@MeMe-lx2jw]

I totally agree with you. I'm one of these no-home people and I travel a lot. For one, to me it's very hard not having a place to call home. Traveling is becoming more and more boring because everything looks more and more the same, and don't get me started on the foods!

[@7saany]

Cultures are always changing, but the infrastructure and the land and the foods and local agriculture possibly cant change too much. Even the weather may change. Of you are worried these things may no longer be then get out to see as much of it as there is now. thats like saying oh I yearn for the actual Scandinavian Viking culture, when that in itself changed and we don't necessarily blame the modern Norwegians for it.

[@newparadigmsubliminals8324]

@@MeMe-lx2jw I can totally relate to that after traveling with no-home for the last 25 years. Now, it is about growing my own food and living in the nature in a country far away from my own. I'm just starting this part of my journey. It's the only place I am finding the diversity and something new each day. Culture is all becoming a blur now except in some far away mostly abandoned villages with only a few elderly remaining.

[@neerajkrishnang3916]

@Gnawer Shreth Aren't cultures and traditions simply the way people have done things? This intermixing would only create new ones over a period of time with variations according to geography.

[@MonicaBU]

There is something about the way he looks that reminds me of Robin Williams when he was younger!

[@Zoza15]

That's an interesting thought...

[@balasubs1]

Wherever YOU are is Home n wherever you sstay is House!!

[@LanceWinslow]

Yes, he's right, I've often considered this too, as I traveled around, people always asked "where are you from" but if you are always traveling - what do I say?

[@teafortwo828]

Home is where your heart is..

[@Dadore]

“We can choose our sense of home. Create our own community”- Firstly, it applies only to those, who’s mother language is English; secondly, there is not enough time far that - people have to study, get education, find/create a job, raise a family, take of kids and so on. Blessed are those who don’t have that burden to “create their own home and community” somewhere at the other end of the world.

[@laurelinlorefield318]

Military brats ... excuse me, kids can easily relate to the first part of his talk (I'm an AF brat and love the term brat, but not everyone does). Some call themselves TCK (third culture kids). I love the suggestion that stillness and mindfulness helps to answer that age-old question about home.

[@Pendoza84]

Welcome in Holland :D

[@nickjoeb]

Now I need to hear a speech about starting from stopping because I've spent a lot of time in total stop.

[@artyj135]

This is the best comment I have ever read under a youtube video and I have awarded you this honour in my own personal award ceremony. I am sorry there are no actual prizes.

[@lethargic_cow]

The last one said it all... "Home is not a place where you sleep, it's a place where you stand."

[@macnet83]

home is where you find peace.

[@heavensims5857]

macnet83 this what I said in my paper I wrote

[@patrickstarr602]

Heaven Sims I have a school project due in a week. Would love to get inspiration from it if you still have it

[@xmidsummersky]

wow.

[@EmanP223]

Exactly.

[@hitsilent]

Home not just the place where you sleep. It's the place where you stand.

[@killermanhat]

yeah, I'm just from straya (australia) only lived in sydney and fucken love it ;).... I'd say ur english, and u sound like it to

[@semirames]

This talks suit well for brazilians, that I think who are the most mixed race people in the world. Well done!!! Congrats!

[@AZEROONE]

home sweet home

[@apwalden87]

Amen

[@Ishkhanants]

"The important is not where you are coming from, it is where you are going to"

[@DystopianOwl]

Wow..

[@nachoijp]

I wish I could travel :(

[@PeterLustigg]

2:12 Vaincóuuvah!

[@oliviabeckers3708]

you are so fuuuunnnyyyyyy

[@PeterLustigg]

Olivia Beckers Thanks!

[@rocky328150]

he made me google about him!!

[@alexwong9908]

How old are passports, visas, and national boundaries as a modern construct?

[@MrMadalien]

Hmm, yes, I am also a "TCK", but I have a relatively well defined object that I consider home. My computer, lol. The only ubiquitously comfortable "place" where I an be.

[@JB2519]

Your computer can be in the 'cloud' ;)

[@lowkeylunatic]

As an American living in Canada after working in Mexico and the Bahamas, I can relate to this unequivocally. I found my home in Canada but only after finding myself in Mexico.

[@asterix908]

I can relate. All my life, I've always been an outsider. Really the only place I felt like I belonged, was New York City.

[@alienkishorekumar]

My definition of home: A place I can sit however the hell I want to.

[@smurfzone1]

Home is where human agency and human communication service provider regulates the wi-fi pretentions, wi-fi connect the dots, wi-fi compromises or adverse advance of tricks or program value manipulations, in process, and often all assimilated by mutual and multidimensional progress of preservation concerning "wi-fi" and everything that came before.

[@Gamer_75763]

Movement is a fantastic priviilege. Movement ultimately only has a meaning if you have a home to go back to. Home is not the place where you sleep. its the place where you stand

[@joshwrites]

my home is in my head - Bob Marley

[@MirzaYawarBaig]

Very well expressed - the reality for a huge number of people in the world - where your ethnicity and race, is always more important than where you were born or live or have lived all your life. This is what happens to Desis in the West. The son or daughter of South Indian grandparents, whose parents and he/she were born in the UK or US and so is a SECOND GENERATION British subject or American citizen by birth, but who looks Tamil is asked, "Where are you from?" Does he/she feel insulted? Or does he/she understand why he/she is being asked this question when his/her white friend is not asked the same question. However, before we run away with that, let us see what happens to an Afrikaner or English South African child whose great-grandparents came there and he/she is a White African, just like and African American is "African American" - who is asked, "Where are you from?"