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What is Home?
After relocating to Spain, they realized that they had been carrying an invisible mental load while living in America. One day, while sitting in a busy cafè…the couple realized that none of the people milling about had guns.
At this moment, Santel’s husband realized that living in America caused him to be on alert whenever he was out in public. A feeling he never got in Spain. “And I realized this weight that I had been carrying around my whole life wasn’t necessary. Like what we think is normal is not normal,” he said.
— Tod Perry
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“I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace…Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence
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A 2023 report on behaviors among Mongolian yurt dwellers in China in the journal Buildings takes it a step further. According to the study, Mongolian spiritual beliefs originate from the form and atmosphere of the yurt or ger and influence behavior and values. The circular and dome shape of the ger serves as a symbol of the combination of religion and life…
