The Tyranny of Distance

In one of my typical shuffling sessions of my mental iPod, I thought about Split Enz today and ended up watching a few of their videos, including “Six Months in a Leaky Boat.” Split Enz is a New Zealand (...NZ) band that you may remember from the 80’s with such the hit “I Got You” or “One Step Ahead of You” and so forth. “Six Months” is slightly less well-known but just as catchy as any good Split Enz song that you are likely to hear.

A line caught my ear, and because of my inability to remember lyrics, I played it a few times to make sure I got it right, which goes “The tyranny of distance/ didn’t stop the cav-a-lier...,” which I thought was brilliant. But, it was too good for an 80’s pop band that usually repeats a single line for three minutes, so I looked it up. The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia's History by Geoffrey Blainey is a study on how Austalia’s physical geography was highly responsible for Australia’s ability to create its own, unique culture, despite being part of a larger empire.

That got me to thinking about living abroad (but then again, what doesn’t?), and I was thinking about the tyranny of distance in my own life, both self-inflicted and incidental. Because of my own interests in other lands, languages, and cultures, I have obviously found myself moving around a bit over the years, as evidenced by the fact that by the time you read this I may already have moved on from Belgium to India, having come from Texas a couple days ago. Now, this feat could only be done with the aid of modern aircraft and my communications because of technology, but aircrafts and technology don’t change the human condition of separation and distance.

Thinking just of my “best” (not really keen on that term, myself) friends and family, there is quite a bit of distance there. From Amarillo, Texas to Antwerp, Belgium, to Beirut, Lebanon to Byron Bay, Australia and all points in between, I can think of over a dozen locations that the people “closest” to me are furthest away. At any one point I am physically closer to one, but further from the rest. In other words, there is no way that I can be close to very many of the any given time. But, those to whom I am “closest” to it has never been a determining factor as to whether we stayed close or not. I am very “close” to some people whom I have only seen once or twice in a decade or so, whereas people I may see every day, it wouldn’t matter to me one wit if I ever saw them again in my life.

When I graduated from High School, I was in the position to give a speech to the graduating class, and if people know me well, it is sometimes a dangerous thing to hand me a microphone (I am thinking particularly of a bus trip to Venice with 35 antsy college students, but that is for another blog), and well, this was no exception. As I was to be giving the “fare thee well” speech, I did just that and ended with, more or less, the words, “for many of you tonight, this will merely be ‘good-bye’ when you leave these doors, but for me, I bid you farewell.” Nothing like a flair for the dramatic to end your high school career on, one that for me was about three years too long.

But, I meant it. I left Amarillo and said, “Farewell.” And, for nearly two decades, except for visiting family, there was not much reason for me to be there. However, perhaps the tyranny of distance has allowed some perspective, that or sitting down to blog about the various places that I have lived. The past couple of times I have been to Amarillo I have actually re-discovered a town that I didn’t even know existed, one that I had lived in for five or so years of my life, but never really knew. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not packing up and moving back to Amarillo, but having the distance from it for so long has allowed me to go back, nearly as a tourist, and to discover the good things that it has to offer, alongside the reasons that made we want to leave town within minutes of finishing my graduation speech, which I did more or less.

Coming back to Antwerp this time as well, I am met with fresh eyes and experiences and I know that when I return from India, I will be “moving” to Antwerp, as if it were a new experience. Because I have somewhat recently moved within the city, though only slightly, I have already begun to discover an entirely new city within the old city that I once knew. So, here again, the physical distance from where I used to live, albeit quite short, is enough to provide an entirely different perspective.

So, I am bound then to question if whether distance has in fact been a tyrant in my life? Some might say so, but for the most part I believe that distance has been a chance for me to step back and to see the value in people, places, and things in my life that otherwise I may have been taking for granted while being right next to them.

Living in Europe it is easy to see that proximity does not mean intimacy, in fact quite the opposite, especially when it comes to considering relationships amongst people. Within Belgium, for example, the fact that people are so concentrated and close just as often as not makes for divisions rather than unity. When space is such a premium and dialects and/or separate languages and lineages are put on the table, Europe becomes downright tribal and communities just a stone’s throw from each other are more distant than relatives who left for America decades or centuries before.

How often do we find that we do not know our own neighbor, but we do know people across the world because we are reading their blogs, for example? Not a new thought, I know, but one that never gets old repeating either.

So, is distance a tyrant? Yes and No, for me at least. While distance can make the heart grow fonder, it can indeed cause rifts that would not otherwise be present if location was not a factor. Currently I am greatly enjoying getting to know certain people better via electronic epistolary correspondence, but at the same time, feel the pangs of distance. I will miss my daughter enormously when I am in India, for example, but via my blog I will actually be communicating with her on a (hopefully) daily basis and gaining experiences that I will share with her and others to last a lifetime.

Though I will not be spending six months in a leaky boat, but rather two months in Tamil Nadu, I agree that with Split Enz that the Tyranny of Distance will not stop me either.

We’ll be in touch.