0:00:00.739,0:00:02.583
Where do you come from?

0:00:02.607,0:00:04.654
It's such a simple question,

0:00:04.678,0:00:06.837
but these days, of course,[br]simple questions

0:00:06.861,0:00:09.883
bring ever more complicated answers.

0:00:09.907,0:00:12.835
People are always asking[br]me where I come from,

0:00:12.859,0:00:16.015
and they're expecting me to say India,

0:00:16.039,0:00:19.116
and they're absolutely right[br]insofar as 100 percent

0:00:19.140,0:00:22.682
of my blood and ancestry[br]does come from India.

0:00:22.706,0:00:26.747
Except, I've never lived[br]one day of my life there.

0:00:26.771,0:00:29.155
I can't speak even one word

0:00:29.179,0:00:32.155
of its more than 22,000 dialects.

0:00:32.179,0:00:34.365
So I don't think I've really[br]earned the right

0:00:34.389,0:00:36.811
to call myself an Indian.

0:00:36.835,0:00:38.359
And if "Where do you come from?"

0:00:38.383,0:00:41.426
means "Where were you born[br]and raised and educated?"

0:00:41.450,0:00:43.852
then I'm entirely[br]of that funny little country

0:00:43.876,0:00:45.223
known as England,

0:00:45.247,0:00:47.634
except I left England[br]as soon as I completed

0:00:47.658,0:00:49.547
my undergraduate education,

0:00:49.571,0:00:51.264
and all the time I was growing up,

0:00:51.288,0:00:54.060
I was the only kid in all my classes

0:00:54.084,0:00:57.189
who didn't begin to look[br]like the classic English heroes

0:00:57.213,0:00:59.867
represented in our textbooks.

0:00:59.891,0:01:01.169
And if "Where do you come from?"

0:01:01.193,0:01:02.860
means "Where do you pay your taxes?

0:01:02.884,0:01:05.408
Where do you see your doctor[br]and your dentist?"

0:01:05.432,0:01:07.771
then I'm very much of the United States,

0:01:07.795,0:01:10.339
and I have been for 48 years now,

0:01:10.363,0:01:12.427
since I was a really small child.

0:01:12.451,0:01:14.135
Except, for many of those years,

0:01:14.159,0:01:16.636
I've had to carry around this[br]funny little pink card

0:01:16.660,0:01:18.565
with green lines running through my face

0:01:18.589,0:01:21.178
identifying me as a permanent alien.

0:01:21.202,0:01:25.440
I do actually feel more alien[br]the longer I live there.

0:01:25.464,0:01:27.627
(Laughter)

0:01:27.651,0:01:29.214
And if "Where do you come from?"

0:01:29.238,0:01:31.980
means "Which place goes deepest inside you

0:01:32.004,0:01:35.160
and where do you try[br]to spend most of your time?"

0:01:35.184,0:01:36.333
then I'm Japanese,

0:01:36.357,0:01:38.586
because I've been living as much as I can

0:01:38.610,0:01:41.971
for the last 25 years in Japan.

0:01:41.995,0:01:45.024
Except, all of those years[br]I've been there on a tourist visa,

0:01:45.048,0:01:47.166
and I'm fairly sure not many Japanese

0:01:47.190,0:01:50.057
would want to consider me one of them.

0:01:50.081,0:01:53.308
And I say all this just to stress

0:01:53.332,0:01:56.028
how very old-fashioned and straightforward

0:01:56.052,0:01:57.027
my background is,

0:01:57.051,0:02:01.075
because when I go to Hong[br]Kong or Sydney or Vancouver,

0:02:01.099,0:02:02.971
most of the kids I meet

0:02:02.995,0:02:06.770
are much more international[br]and multi-cultured than I am.

0:02:06.794,0:02:09.435
And they have one home[br]associated with their parents,

0:02:09.459,0:02:12.591
but another associated[br]with their partners,

0:02:12.615,0:02:15.980
a third connected maybe with the place[br]where they happen to be,

0:02:16.004,0:02:18.894
a fourth connected with the place[br]they dream of being,

0:02:18.918,0:02:21.238
and many more besides.

0:02:21.262,0:02:24.524
And their whole life will be[br]spent taking pieces

0:02:24.548,0:02:28.011
of many different places[br]and putting them together

0:02:28.035,0:02:30.853
into a stained glass whole.

0:02:30.877,0:02:33.294
Home for them is really[br]a work in progress.

0:02:33.318,0:02:35.890
It's like a project[br]on which they're constantly adding

0:02:35.914,0:02:39.024
upgrades and improvements and corrections.

0:02:39.048,0:02:40.919
And for more and more of us,

0:02:40.943,0:02:45.374
home has really less to do[br]with a piece of soil

0:02:45.398,0:02:48.125
than, you could say, with a piece of soul.

0:02:48.149,0:02:50.530
If somebody suddenly asks[br]me, "Where's your home?"

0:02:50.554,0:02:53.445
I think about my sweetheart[br]or my closest friends

0:02:53.469,0:02:57.712
or the songs that travel with me[br]wherever I happen to be.

0:02:57.736,0:02:59.569
And I'd always felt this way,

0:02:59.593,0:03:02.312
but it really came home to me, as it were,

0:03:02.336,0:03:05.030
some years ago when[br]I was climbing up the stairs

0:03:05.054,0:03:07.732
in my parents' house in California,

0:03:07.756,0:03:10.558
and I looked through the living[br]room windows

0:03:10.582,0:03:15.736
and I saw that we were[br]encircled by 70-foot flames,

0:03:15.760,0:03:18.222
one of those wildfires[br]that regularly tear through

0:03:18.246,0:03:22.053
the hills of California[br]and many other such places.

0:03:22.077,0:03:25.078
And three hours later,[br]that fire had reduced

0:03:25.102,0:03:27.822
my home and every last thing in it

0:03:27.846,0:03:30.840
except for me to ash.

0:03:30.864,0:03:33.550
And when I woke up the next morning,

0:03:33.574,0:03:35.241
I was sleeping on a friend's floor,

0:03:35.265,0:03:37.669
the only thing I had[br]in the world was a toothbrush

0:03:37.693,0:03:40.236
I had just bought[br]from an all-night supermarket.

0:03:40.260,0:03:42.142
Of course, if anybody asked me then,

0:03:42.166,0:03:43.501
"Where is your home?"

0:03:43.525,0:03:47.493
I literally couldn't point[br]to any physical construction.

0:03:47.517,0:03:52.225
My home would have to be whatever[br]I carried around inside me.

0:03:52.249,0:03:56.217
And in so many ways, I think[br]this is a terrific liberation.

0:03:56.241,0:03:58.411
Because when my grandparents were born,

0:03:58.435,0:04:00.938
they pretty much had their sense of home,

0:04:00.962,0:04:04.430
their sense of community,[br]even their sense of enmity,

0:04:04.454,0:04:06.355
assigned to them at birth,

0:04:06.379,0:04:09.333
and didn't have much chance[br]of stepping outside of that.

0:04:09.357,0:04:13.040
And nowadays, at least some of us[br]can choose our sense of home,

0:04:13.064,0:04:15.198
create our sense of community,

0:04:15.222,0:04:18.779
fashion our sense of self, and in so doing

0:04:18.803,0:04:20.916
maybe step a little beyond

0:04:20.940,0:04:22.702
some of the black and white divisions

0:04:22.726,0:04:24.534
of our grandparents' age.

0:04:24.558,0:04:26.418
No coincidence that the president

0:04:26.442,0:04:29.149
of the strongest nation[br]on Earth is half-Kenyan,

0:04:29.173,0:04:30.756
partly raised in Indonesia,

0:04:30.780,0:04:34.355
has a Chinese-Canadian brother-in-law.

0:04:34.379,0:04:37.819
The number of people living[br]in countries not their own

0:04:37.843,0:04:42.606
now comes to 220 million,

0:04:42.630,0:04:45.220
and that's an almost unimaginable number,

0:04:45.244,0:04:48.970
but it means that if you took[br]the whole population of Canada

0:04:48.994,0:04:50.886
and the whole population of Australia

0:04:50.910,0:04:53.196
and then the whole population[br]of Australia again

0:04:53.220,0:04:55.838
and the whole population of Canada again

0:04:55.862,0:04:57.521
and doubled that number,

0:04:57.545,0:04:59.688
you would still have[br]fewer people than belong

0:04:59.712,0:05:01.895
to this great floating tribe.

0:05:01.919,0:05:03.681
And the number of us who live outside

0:05:03.705,0:05:07.765
the old nation-state categories[br]is increasing so quickly,

0:05:07.789,0:05:11.395
by 64 million just in the last 12 years,

0:05:11.419,0:05:14.875
that soon there will be more[br]of us than there are Americans.

0:05:14.899,0:05:19.549
Already, we represent[br]the fifth-largest nation on Earth.

0:05:19.573,0:05:22.405
And in fact, in Canada's largest[br]city, Toronto,

0:05:22.429,0:05:26.095
the average resident today[br]is what used to be called

0:05:26.119,0:05:30.187
a foreigner, somebody born[br]in a very different country.

0:05:30.211,0:05:33.976
And I've always felt that the beauty[br]of being surrounded by the foreign

0:05:34.000,0:05:35.573
is that it slaps you awake.

0:05:35.597,0:05:38.377
You can't take anything for granted.

0:05:38.401,0:05:41.111
Travel, for me, is a little bit[br]like being in love,

0:05:41.135,0:05:45.168
because suddenly all your senses[br]are at the setting marked "on."

0:05:45.192,0:05:49.169
Suddenly you're alert to the secret[br]patterns of the world.

0:05:49.193,0:05:53.485
The real voyage of discovery,[br]as Marcel Proust famously said,

0:05:53.509,0:05:56.483
consists not in seeing new sights,

0:05:56.507,0:05:58.853
but in looking with new eyes.

0:05:58.877,0:06:00.819
And of course, once you have new eyes,

0:06:00.843,0:06:03.256
even the old sights, even your home

0:06:03.280,0:06:05.933
become something different.

0:06:05.957,0:06:08.751
Many of the people living[br]in countries not their own

0:06:08.775,0:06:11.834
are refugees who never[br]wanted to leave home

0:06:11.858,0:06:14.550
and ache to go back home.

0:06:14.574,0:06:16.197
But for the fortunate among us,

0:06:16.221,0:06:20.478
I think the age of movement brings[br]exhilarating new possibilities.

0:06:20.502,0:06:21.543
Certainly when I'm traveling,

0:06:21.567,0:06:23.857
especially to the major[br]cities of the world,

0:06:23.881,0:06:25.982
the typical person I meet today

0:06:26.006,0:06:30.527
will be, let's say, a half-Korean,[br]half-German young woman

0:06:30.551,0:06:32.230
living in Paris.

0:06:32.254,0:06:35.288
And as soon as she meets a half-Thai,

0:06:35.312,0:06:38.502
half-Canadian young guy from Edinburgh,

0:06:38.526,0:06:40.979
she recognizes him as kin.

0:06:41.003,0:06:45.318
She realizes that she probably[br]has much more in common with him

0:06:45.342,0:06:48.911
than with anybody entirely[br]of Korea or entirely of Germany.

0:06:48.935,0:06:51.669
So they become friends. They fall in love.

0:06:51.693,0:06:53.947
They move to New York City.

0:06:53.971,0:06:56.110
(Laughter)

0:06:56.134,0:06:57.496
Or Edinburgh.

0:06:57.520,0:07:00.770
And the little girl[br]who arises out of their union

0:07:00.794,0:07:02.901
will of course be not Korean or German

0:07:02.925,0:07:05.444
or French or Thai or Scotch or Canadian

0:07:05.468,0:07:07.549
or even American, but a wonderful

0:07:07.573,0:07:11.683
and constantly evolving[br]mix of all those places.

0:07:11.707,0:07:14.448
And potentially, everything about the way

0:07:14.472,0:07:17.197
that young woman dreams about the world,

0:07:17.221,0:07:20.243
writes about the world,[br]thinks about the world,

0:07:20.267,0:07:22.213
could be something different,

0:07:22.237,0:07:25.408
because it comes out of this[br]almost unprecedented

0:07:25.432,0:07:27.381
blend of cultures.

0:07:27.405,0:07:30.465
Where you come from now[br]is much less important

0:07:30.489,0:07:32.113
than where you're going.

0:07:32.137,0:07:34.509
More and more of us[br]are rooted in the future

0:07:34.533,0:07:37.805
or the present tense[br]as much as in the past.

0:07:37.829,0:07:40.368
And home, we know, is not just the place

0:07:40.392,0:07:42.478
where you happen to be born.

0:07:42.502,0:07:46.951
It's the place where you become yourself.

0:07:46.975,0:07:49.373
And yet,

0:07:49.397,0:07:52.038
there is one great problem with movement,

0:07:52.062,0:07:55.249
and that is that it's really[br]hard to get your bearings

0:07:55.273,0:07:56.867
when you're in midair.

0:07:56.891,0:08:00.153
Some years ago, I noticed[br]that I had accumulated

0:08:00.177,0:08:03.675
one million miles[br]on United Airlines alone.

0:08:03.699,0:08:05.725
You all know that crazy system,

0:08:05.749,0:08:09.453
six days in hell, you get[br]the seventh day free.

0:08:09.477,0:08:12.959
(Laughter)

0:08:12.983,0:08:15.235
And I began to think that really,

0:08:15.259,0:08:18.514
movement was only as good[br]as the sense of stillness

0:08:18.538,0:08:22.361
that you could bring to it[br]to put it into perspective.

0:08:22.385,0:08:25.215
And eight months[br]after my house burned down,

0:08:25.239,0:08:27.937
I ran into a friend who taught[br]at a local high school,

0:08:27.961,0:08:31.469
and he said, "I've got[br]the perfect place for you."

0:08:31.493,0:08:33.477
"Really?" I said. I'm[br]always a bit skeptical

0:08:33.501,0:08:34.955
when people say things like that.

0:08:34.979,0:08:36.325
"No, honestly," he went on,

0:08:36.349,0:08:38.171
"it's only three hours away by car,

0:08:38.195,0:08:39.785
and it's not very expensive,

0:08:39.809,0:08:43.365
and it's probably not like anywhere[br]you've stayed before."

0:08:43.389,0:08:47.564
"Hmm." I was beginning to get[br]slightly intrigued. "What is it?"

0:08:47.588,0:08:50.343
"Well —" Here my friend hemmed and hawed —

0:08:50.367,0:08:53.925
"Well, actually[br]it's a Catholic hermitage."

0:08:53.949,0:08:55.891
This was the wrong answer.

0:08:55.915,0:08:58.438
I had spent 15 years in Anglican schools,

0:08:58.462,0:09:03.036
so I had had enough hymnals[br]and crosses to last me a lifetime.

0:09:03.060,0:09:05.307
Several lifetimes, actually.

0:09:05.331,0:09:07.865
But my friend assured me[br]that he wasn't Catholic,

0:09:07.889,0:09:09.318
nor were most of his students,

0:09:09.342,0:09:12.099
but he took his classes[br]there every spring.

0:09:12.123,0:09:16.862
And as he had it,[br]even the most restless, distractible,

0:09:16.886,0:09:20.896
testosterone-addled[br]15-year-old Californian boy

0:09:20.920,0:09:24.132
only had to spend three days in silence

0:09:24.156,0:09:28.386
and something in him cooled[br]down and cleared out.

0:09:28.410,0:09:30.695
He found himself.

0:09:30.719,0:09:33.434
And I thought, "Anything[br]that works for a 15-year-old boy

0:09:33.458,0:09:34.773
ought to work for me."

0:09:34.797,0:09:38.383
So I got in my car,[br]and I drove three hours north

0:09:38.407,0:09:39.859
along the coast,

0:09:39.883,0:09:42.419
and the roads grew emptier and narrower,

0:09:42.443,0:09:45.183
and then I turned[br]onto an even narrower path,

0:09:45.207,0:09:48.823
barely paved, that snaked for two miles

0:09:48.847,0:09:51.346
up to the top of a mountain.

0:09:51.370,0:09:54.185
And when I got out of my car,

0:09:54.209,0:09:56.555
the air was pulsing.

0:09:56.579,0:09:58.415
The whole place was absolutely silent,

0:09:58.439,0:10:01.875
but the silence wasn't[br]an absence of noise.

0:10:01.899,0:10:05.916
It was really a presence of a kind[br]of energy or quickening.

0:10:05.940,0:10:09.427
And at my feet was the great,[br]still blue plate

0:10:09.451,0:10:11.681
of the Pacific Ocean.

0:10:11.705,0:10:16.115
All around me were 800[br]acres of wild dry brush.

0:10:16.139,0:10:18.901
And I went down to the room[br]in which I was to be sleeping.

0:10:18.925,0:10:20.626
Small but eminently comfortable,

0:10:20.650,0:10:22.835
it had a bed and a rocking chair

0:10:22.859,0:10:26.009
and a long desk and even longer[br]picture windows

0:10:26.033,0:10:30.298
looking out on a small,[br]private, walled garden,

0:10:30.322,0:10:33.498
and then 1,200 feet of golden pampas grass

0:10:33.522,0:10:36.490
running down to the sea.

0:10:36.514,0:10:39.659
And I sat down, and I began to write,

0:10:39.683,0:10:41.163
and write, and write,

0:10:41.187,0:10:44.776
even though I'd gone there[br]really to get away from my desk.

0:10:44.800,0:10:49.270
And by the time I got up,[br]four hours had passed.

0:10:49.294,0:10:51.399
Night had fallen,

0:10:51.423,0:10:56.155
and I went out under this great[br]overturned saltshaker of stars,

0:10:56.179,0:10:58.407
and I could see the tail lights of cars

0:10:58.431,0:11:02.620
disappearing around the headlands[br]12 miles to the south.

0:11:02.644,0:11:06.328
And it really seemed[br]like my concerns of the previous day

0:11:06.352,0:11:08.278
vanishing.

0:11:08.302,0:11:10.090
And the next day, when I woke up

0:11:10.114,0:11:13.558
in the absence of telephones[br]and TVs and laptops,

0:11:13.582,0:11:17.711
the days seemed to stretch[br]for a thousand hours.

0:11:17.735,0:11:21.410
It was really all the freedom[br]I know when I'm traveling,

0:11:21.434,0:11:26.024
but it also profoundly[br]felt like coming home.

0:11:26.048,0:11:27.640
And I'm not a religious person,

0:11:27.664,0:11:29.141
so I didn't go to the services.

0:11:29.165,0:11:31.710
I didn't consult the monks for guidance.

0:11:31.734,0:11:34.490
I just took walks along the monastery road

0:11:34.514,0:11:36.839
and sent postcards to loved ones.

0:11:36.863,0:11:38.673
I looked at the clouds,

0:11:38.697,0:11:42.998
and I did what is hardest[br]of all for me to do usually,

0:11:43.022,0:11:45.492
which is nothing at all.

0:11:45.516,0:11:47.800
And I started to go back to this place,

0:11:47.824,0:11:51.368
and I noticed that I was doing[br]my most important work there

0:11:51.392,0:11:54.899
invisibly just by sitting still,

0:11:54.923,0:11:58.024
and certainly coming[br]to my most critical decisions

0:11:58.048,0:12:00.306
the way I never could when I was racing

0:12:00.330,0:12:02.879
from the last email[br]to the next appointment.

0:12:02.903,0:12:05.508
And I began to think that something in me

0:12:05.532,0:12:07.497
had really been crying out for stillness,

0:12:07.521,0:12:09.045
but of course I couldn't hear it

0:12:09.069,0:12:10.831
because I was running around so much.

0:12:10.855,0:12:13.484
I was like some crazy guy[br]who puts on a blindfold

0:12:13.508,0:12:16.715
and then complains[br]that he can't see a thing.

0:12:16.739,0:12:19.256
And I thought back[br]to that wonderful phrase

0:12:19.280,0:12:21.628
I had learned as a boy from Seneca,

0:12:21.652,0:12:25.286
in which he says, "That man is poor

0:12:25.310,0:12:30.659
not who has little but who hankers[br]after more."

0:12:30.683,0:12:32.751
And, of course, I'm not suggesting

0:12:32.775,0:12:34.585
that anybody here go into a monastery.

0:12:34.609,0:12:36.177
That's not the point.

0:12:36.201,0:12:39.895
But I do think[br]it's only by stopping movement

0:12:39.919,0:12:42.191
that you can see where to go.

0:12:42.215,0:12:45.796
And it's only by stepping[br]out of your life and the world

0:12:45.820,0:12:49.365
that you can see what you[br]most deeply care about

0:12:49.389,0:12:51.771
and find a home.

0:12:51.795,0:12:53.814
And I've noticed so many people now

0:12:53.838,0:12:56.902
take conscious measures[br]to sit quietly for 30 minutes

0:12:56.926,0:12:59.435
every morning just collecting themselves

0:12:59.459,0:13:01.995
in one corner of the room[br]without their devices,

0:13:02.019,0:13:04.068
or go running every evening,

0:13:04.092,0:13:06.024
or leave their cell phones behind

0:13:06.048,0:13:09.941
when they go to have a long[br]conversation with a friend.

0:13:09.965,0:13:13.110
Movement is a fantastic privilege,

0:13:13.134,0:13:16.467
and it allows us to do so[br]much that our grandparents

0:13:16.491,0:13:18.588
could never have dreamed of doing.

0:13:18.612,0:13:20.493
But movement, ultimately,

0:13:20.517,0:13:25.034
only has a meaning if you[br]have a home to go back to.

0:13:25.058,0:13:27.825
And home, in the end, is of course

0:13:27.849,0:13:30.693
not just the place where you sleep.

0:13:30.717,0:13:33.332
It's the place where you stand.

0:13:33.356,0:13:34.789
Thank you.

0:13:34.813,0:13:40.506
(Applause)