Global Roots – contradiction of terms?

How important are our roots? I dare say they are important indeed. Smells, sights, tastes, and sounds from the neighborhoods we grew up in take on unreasonably strong emotional significance. Few languages can compete for the affection of our ears as well as our ‘Native’ tongue. The emotional connections we feel for the qualities we experienced at Origin are natural, physiologically based, and evolutionarily driven. Young brains are extra open to attachment. Psychiatrists cite the first three years as the key period for ‘imprinting’ – the process where an infant downloads the neurological, emotional, physical regularities of its new world (often the extents of which are largely defined by the mother’s breathing, facial expressions, and smell).

So, our roots define us, whether we like it of not. Even though I continue to decide to move to the next place, and still not return to my native Greece, I still feel more from the simple sound of a loud motorcycle (tampered engine… how on earth did that become a fashion that still persists?) combined with the smell of lemon trees in bloom and a bit of sunned (possibly strike-compiled) garbage, than I do from my favorite perfume and anything else short of my mother. Go figure.

Now, what if my Origin is 100% Greek neighborhood-wise, but my mother (origin of origins compared to neighborhood) is Chinese? And what if the sweet languages at my origin were Greek-Chinese… with echoes of (parental secret language) English?

I’d like to know is at what point do our emotional attachments to happenstance surroundings get weaker? Because, I seem to have continued the incontrollable and illogical imprinting for a lot longer than 3 years. It may well still be going on. For example, England. Was only there for 1.5 years during the awkward tween years where photographing me was just for the sake of future laughs, I think. I remember little, but I care a lot. It appears I feel almost English. Well, and it went on. Moved to Switzerland. Attended an International English-Speaking school, and learned High-German as a foreign language. I understand some embarrassingly low percent of conversations in Swiss German. But, listening to Swiss German is like music to my ears, and, importantly, ‘home’. I attended UC Berkeley for architecture and later The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Each school kicked my **** in its own unique way, and I spent my years largely frantically studying instead of fanatically partying (as I had hoped). If I meet anyone remotely related to either school, I will treat them like extended family and remember those ‘fun times’ (!), however. This sad state of affairs is still continuing with every job and every city and every restaurant that I happen to touch. Touching it apparently makes it mine. And my things are, well, to be given the honorary importance of historical events.

And here is where I would like to get back to answering the question that started this blog post to begin with: Global. Roots. Roots are the basis of a tree. Trees grow. People grow. So, what? Roots grow too, but, clearly, always from the point of origin. Global refers to worldwide. Worldwide sounds rootless. A worldwide tree would be the earth…

Thinking of the earth takes us away from the one-person scale where the senses and emotions thrive, to the bird’s eye view or, more accurately perhaps, the spaceship view where unity and ‘big picture’ life ideas reign, but lose the emotion and we no longer do wonderful crazy illogical human things like buy the soap that costs significantly more than the next soap.