Afresh: (adverb) anew; once more; again: to start afresh.

It used to be that every time I moved I was running away from something. I left Holland, those many years ago, as much to get away as to go somewhere. Every time we moved as a child, I was allowed to try again and, believe me, at that time I needed as many new starts as I could get.

Every time I moved I was able to reinvent myself. I was no longer saddled with any preconceptions except for the ones that already existed in my own head. So I did. In the beginning, because I wasn’t that experienced in the reinventing game, I made small changes, but as I grew older the changes grew bigger and more pronounced.

Moving from Holland to Thailand and then from Thailand to Singapore produced some big changes, as did my move from Singers to Australia and back again (though admittedly, because I wasn't alone the changes were more gradual).

If people from my ancient past saw me today, they might have some trouble recognising me. Growth is change and every time I’ve changed places I’ve grown a great deal.

But that isn’t the reason that I’m moving this time. I’m not so much moving to reinvent myself, but more to confirm who I am.

The only reason we reinvent ourselves is because we are unhappy with who we are.

You see, we’ve created this interesting idea that growth, in all shapes and forms, is good. Economic growth, personal growth, spiritual growth, emotional growth, physical growth, intellectual growth, etc. There are very few incidents where the word ‘growth’ is associated with anything bad.

People forget, though, that cancer is a growth.

Uncontrolled growth is undesirable. We need to guide our growth and, in some ways more importantly, come to understand what we have become before we change further into what we want to be. After all, the harder we concentrate on growing, the less satisfied we will be with who we are right now.

So I’m moving to spend some time being satisfied with who I am and where I am in my life.

And I immediately imagine some of you asking ‘so why can’t I do that in Singapore?’ Well, the easy answer to that is that I don’t have to and I don’t want to. The difficult answer is a bit more involved, but starts with one word: Perspective.

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, it is very hard to understand a condition while being right in the middle of it. At that time I was talking about sanity, but it applies to everything else, as well. It is hard to understand work while you’re employed, it is hard to understand a country while you’re still living there and it is hard to understand your own views without trying to understand the ideas that oppose your own. This idea is more commonly captured in the idiom ‘You don’t know what you’ve got, until you’ve lost it.’

So I’m going to lose Singapore, lose the life I’ve built up, lose my friends and lose my rhythm. At the same time, I’ll be immersed in an ‘alien’ landscape, with different beliefs, different values and different traditions.

I’m starting afresh to lose myself. I’m going away to find out what this place means. I’m going to extremes to understand the norms. I’m physically moving to find spiritual equilibrium. I’m going exploring to understand better what I already have.

And lastly, unmentioned so far but just as important, I’m going because it might well be the last time I can.