To Move from Home into a Land Far Away:
The Problem of Getting-by Without Getting Burned-out
Two interesting pieces I’ve recently address the topic of moving from one country to another to see better economic (employment) opportunities:
- Tajja Isen, “Why Success in Canada Means Moving to America,” The Walrus, May 10, 2022.
- Rónán Riordan, “I don’t want to be the guy who went abroad and realised everything is wrong with Ireland,” The Irish Times, May 16, 2022.
So, one from Canada, one from Ireland; but both a part of the former British Empire. (A third, related piece I read last week, concerns an Irish woman leaving London life and returning to Ireland):
- Paula Gahan, “You could drop dead on the street in London and no one would care,” The Irish Times, May 12, 2022.
These three pieces address the problem of “getting by without getting burned out” when living in an urban environment in the West.
Without undergoing severe asceticism and learning to be disciplined as a monk initiate, the struggle to survive persists. Whether one lives in Berlin, Toronto, Dublin, London, or New York, problems don’t go away just because one moves away; often you only exchange one matrix of conflicts for another.
These confessional pieces (told in different ways for different reasons) have stubbornly stuck to me today, probably because, especially for the past year, it has felt most apparent that the City of Austin intends to slowly push me out of its fabled limits.
And one day the city may succeed. And then where would I go? Not Dublin. Not Dallas.
Rónán Riordion went from Kerry to Berlin. But Berlin? It seems a little too close to Moscow for me to move there.
And some acquaintances have suggested Costa Rica, but like the piece where the Canadian comes to accepting the reality that moving to the United States might be best for its author Isen’s prospects, Costa seems like a nice place to retire to if one already has savings or already established steady revenue streams, but if one doesn’t have those foundations already laid, then….
Though I have often imagined myself to be a stubbier, clumsier version of Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. (for I used to be good at finding arrowheads on the family farm), I remain unsure whether I should start searching for “fortune and glory,” in either the heart of the jungles of Central America or the capital of the former Deutsche Reich. (Probably neither; not when it still seems like everyone else wants to come to Texas.) Yet, as my era (and home) in Austin will surely someday end, I may have little choice in the matter of where to go next.
