PSA: The World Sucks, Be A Nomad
elesq
"The world is going up in flames," a commonly heard phrase from the last 12 months. "The world is up in flames, and nobody's running towards the fire extinguisher." You groan, you angry-cry, you flip-off the other side – but do you change? Do you sit down and question your own rhetoric and role? If you don't, take this as a sign to make a difference and become a nomad.
Modern nomads are often associated with granola hipsters traveling the world in RVs, but the nomad is more succinctly a metaphor for a lifestyle of non-conformist, fluid thought. It’s a symbolic chance to lead a life of self-exploration and self-actualization. To be a nomad is to think outside of your head by journeying through others’ minds. In an increasingly polarized and tribal society, nomads present us the opportunity to create a dialogue with each other and question our perspectives. They are the ones exchanging conversations across the spectrum, sympathizing with cultures other than their own, and moving society forward.
Without nomads, there will never be progress. Sedentary in location and thought, we’ll continue finding only like-minded individuals and be content within our tribes. We’ll stop exploring each other and our potential impact. Trapped within our heads with our ideas, we won’t grow as thinkers or as a community. Forever stuck on a loop, we’ll lead monotonous lives. Without collaboration across disciplines, there will be no innovation, no technology, and no advancements. The future would be grim without nomads.
They are the changemakers, disputing the definition of “thinking.” Rather than subscribe to a single identity associated with a single tribe, nomads embrace the ability to exchange ideas with unique people and find nuances within their identities. Not anchored to parties or cliques, they create the freedom for themselves to shape their character without judgment or imposed categories. They craft a safe space: a new type of home that values support, discourse, and freedom of expression, a space to envision who one can be without conventional notions of life.
Artists are nomads, exploring a medium, breaking away from beaten paths, and challenging what it means to “work.” Painters question themselves in canvases and watercolor, film-makers view the world through lenses other than their own, and poets use stanzas and meter as outlets for turmoil. Mathematicians are nomads that explore the universes’ secrets for patterns, theorems, and anything that adds up. Freelancers are nomadic when using the internet to live independent lifestyles not constrained to a cubicle in an office with little sunlight or fresh air. Nomads embrace micropolitics, using bottom-up approaches to make widespread differences. Grassroots activism is fueled by nomads not accepting government responses (or lack thereof), but actively engineering an independent mechanism for change. Nomads exist everywhere, leading lives without constraint and with the capacity to develop into freethinkers.
Nomadic lifestyles provide the chance to explore. They traverse their own identities, others’ minds, and even the world. Establishing diverse spaces of thought, nomads advance society forward. But at their core, nomads are regular people deciding to expand their worldview. Whether you travel the steppes of Asia with no sedentary life or you simply embrace open discourse, you too can be a nomad. Maybe then, somebody will finally grab that fire extinguisher.