Geography is four-dimensional

"Baby, you ain't kidding." --Last words of Bill, Kill Bill 2.

I agree with your overall point. But, I have been in America for these last 40 years. Yes, the country/culture/politics/etc have changed, but it's still very similar to the America you (and I) grew up with. May I suggest it's possible your preferences have changed more than has America? That would be totally fine--just food for thought.

Thanks for that. A small truth that can matter.

Cheers

Thinking that Books might share the same time dimension

I think of this often. Born in the UK, I have been living in Japan since 1988. I get asked on a daily basis, “Where are you from?”. I reply, “England, of the 1980s.” Because, I know, the country that I left at 21, is long gone. People try to engage me about topics, such as bands, which they associate with the UK but if they became famous after I left then they are alien to me.

Once, when I went back on holiday and the UK coins had changed many months before and on seeing and holding them for the first time I marvelled at the new designs. I noticed the cashier looked concerned. I mentioned this later to my brother who quipped, “She must have thought it was your first day out of prison!”. A reasonable explanation.

Recently, I noticed another example. If you note the location of ancient settlements across the UK there are areas where there few villages and places where they match up with the modern towns. If you overlay a map of historical forests you can see their huge extent across England. Obviously, towns were outside of these areas. You can’t understand ancient history based on the current geography. Ephesus now stands in dry valley, two thousand years ago it was a thriving port. The landscape of 1066 is different. There are many examples like this.

I've been in Los Angeles throughout that change. As they say, "The future ain't what it used to be."

Been thinking of this but with people.

And people change much faster.

I enjoy this thought experiment. Though I find that some places change a lot, and some change very little, over time. So I guess I don't agree 100% with "that place is long gone" as a default answer. It's fascinating to think about places that change a lot vs. a little either way! Thanks for your writing, as always.

The only constant in life is change" ~Heraclitus

An interesting perspective. I enjoy speaking with friends from all over and hearing how differently people experience the same places. Having lived in many areas across the U.S., I’ve noticed locals almost always talk about “the way it used to be” and can even become hostile toward newcomers, telling them to “go back where they came from,” because the place no longer matches the version they remember.

Our memories have a way of softening the past. We tend to remember the highlights while forgetting the daily frustrations and negative parts that came with it. It reminds me of the saying, “Today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.”

Love it !!! Yes !!! We ourselves are in the fourth dimention

This is beautifully said. I’ve noticed the same thing with companies, cities, families, industries, and even people. We often speak with confidence about something we knew well, but what we really know is a timestamped version of it.

“Where is bound to when” is the line that really lands. It explains why nostalgia can feel so true and still be misleading. We are not just remembering a place. We are remembering the place, the era, and the version of ourselves who lived there.

Maybe the honest phrase is not “I know that place,” but “I knew that place then.”

I met you at SXSW in a 4th dimension. It's been really neat watching you expand your you.

Thank you for the inspiration.

Great essay
I’m grateful for the places I’ve lived and visited
God bless you

Always loved your perspectives. Have to get caught up. “Hell Yeah or No” has shaped my life for many years now. I don’t think “hell” of course. :)

Keep on keepin on.
m

And you’ve change too. You can’t walk through the same river twice.

You have just made me feel more comfortable inside myself . . .
I agree . . Our experiences at at least four dimensional . . .
and
YOU ARE Awesome.
Thank you for sharing.
-g-

What a wonderful way to describe or envision geography as “when.” How true Derek, and thanks as always to hear from you. I’ve been on this list since you sold CD Baby, speaking of when.
Onward,
Michael

Derek? Oh yes, I know him. But I remember the version from 2008, not the man he is today.

Yes. There were several kids at my Australian high school whose parents had immigrated from Greece. These kids all had a similar experience when they visited Greece after High School or during university - the country their parents described didn't really exist anymore.

I had a similar experience when I returned to Australia in 2022 after having left in 1999. The country had changed so much. It was a huge shock. I had a similar shock with the UK. I lived in London from 99-03 then came back in 2019. So much change. So many assumptions challenged.

Of course part of the issue is we change as well. Maybe we never know ourselves outside time either?

As an English boy raised in America, my proper English accent always prompted guffaws when I went 'home.'

Derek
I have this feeling when I say I’m from Glasgow. Last time I lived there 1982!! I lived in London for 19 years. Last time I lived there 2001. I live in Boston now and I can tell someone exactly what’s it like to live in Boston.

It’s true that geography is a time related concept and the speed of change demands that we qualify our experiences in relation to time.

Best
Ian

Maybe there is a fifth dimension? Which is your own perception that is bound to be different from others

This is SO true and relevant and mirrors what a lot folks are expressing. The world is changing and too often not for the better. Thanks for continued inspiring and insightful thoughts.

"No man ever steps in the same river twice"~ Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BCE)

This is a very important topic, especially if you are involved in anything that touches other cultures. It also has a broader implication: we should always stay open-minded and avoid being too sure we are right about a lot of things.

My own perspective is that my background is Irish, but can I still really call myself Irish after more than 50 years away? My values and perspective have changed over time, even as I look back fondly on certain places. I would not go back there again because now I hear a completely different story, and I find it hard to believe it is true. When I talk to someone else, they say the same place is wonderful. I live in China now, and like you, Dereck, I often get asked about the pollution. I usually take photos of the river flowing through Beijing, with people fishing and swimming in it.

I love this Derek.

We had an amazing landscape gardener - Gordon Ford - who used to talk about gardens in four dimensions. He did native Australian gardens, with big rocks, and would design into the future ... he could see the garden in 5 & 10 & 20 years time.

The other thing he did which I loved was imagined lava flowing over the land and depositing rocks ... and that was how he would place his rocks.

He was 87 when he did our garden ... it was the last garden he did.

Thank you for bringing back that memory.

Hi Derek:
That is so true, but I would say maybe more than four dimensions. I lived in Western Kentucky until I was eight years old, and I kept the people, pictures, and sounds with me. I returned for a visit in my forties. Not only was the town different from time, but my perspective was way different. It turns out my memories were not so reliable. In most fundamental ways the town hadn't changed that much, but it was different because I changed. Areas that I remembered one way were different. The house I grew up in seemed much larger from the perspective of an eight year old, and hill out front wasn't nearly as steep as I remembered.

If we come back to a place years later and it looks and feels the same. Does that mean we have travelled back in time?

Got the feeling of going back in time when we visited Cuba in 2019. One of the most unique places we have been to because how things seemed stuck in the past. To use the internet as well you could only do it from parks. It was wonderful.

Having migrated several times in my own life, I can so relate.
"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered," spoken by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.

Good thing time machines don't exist. We'd have a bunch of artists trying to push their latest Gregorian Chant vibes.

Well, in the South many of the virtues and values of "twenty, or even eighty or a hundred years ago" are still alive and vital. At least in Tennessee where I now reside, people are still very caring and solicitous in the best way possible. We relocated here from So. Calif. and couldn't believe how incredibly nice people were. Always ready to lend a hand in any way they can. We have a farm in Middle Tennessee and in some ways it's like the environment I grew up in back in the fifties and sixties. Teens actually greet you respectfully and kindly and we have experienced no 'ageism' discrimination. I would say it's not just WHEN, it's also WHERE, at least in terms of the United States.

If only CD Baby had not changed its vision...what a good place for artists it could still be.

I really long for the Bavarian state of Germany in the early 1980s. I served there in the army had two daughters born in the army hospital but we lived in the village away from the town and away from the army base and life was so wonderful. The last time that I was there that clean, pristine beautiful place was fraught with chaos, college students demonstrating graffiti everywhere people were not the same they were much more absorbed and worried about bringing their culture in. I really long for those days before. I look around the states and feel a similar push against our culture and we're not supposed to be offended or worried about that. Still miss it even if I'm not supposed to.

Very good observation, Derek. I appreciate your thoughts about it. I still remember CD Baby as it was when you were running it.

Derek,
I love this post. It reminds me of how family or friends not seen in a long time, can remember only the me from then. But I'm not that person anymore :-)
Steven

omg so true. i traveled around the world in 2019 and returned to the US right before the pandemic started in 2020. my wife and i talk often how that world we knew and saw in 2019 is long gone.

That's really amazing. I remember when I went off touring Europe on a bus. It was crazy. Each country had its own currency, so the bus had to stop at each country border for us to go to the exchange office and get the local currency. I bet things have changed since then.

When I was five years old, my family lived in Denmark, in a suburb north of Copenhagen. On a weekend, I would tell me my mom, "I'm going out for a walk." I didn't tell her where I was going. I didn't know, myself. I was just going to head out and wander around the neighborhood. I would return an hour or two later. This was 1965. Nobody at that time thought this was dangerous. I felt completely safe.

Interestingly, in all these years, Denmark has changed little. I went back to visit once, in my college years, but my sense is that the Denmark of today is quite similar to the Denmark of 1965. In this instance, the geography has stayed three dimensional.

My family and I spent 3 years traveling America in an RV to see what the country was like. We managed to visit 28 states. But now, two years after we've stopped traveling, I realize my perception of the states and areas we visited were determined largely upon our experiences there. We totaled both our RV AND our truck in Texas. We hated Texas. Had that not happened, maybe we love Texas. We absolutely loved visiting New Mexico, but if we had to actually live there, maybe our opinion is different.

Geography is definitely 4-dimensional.

Everything is situational perspective regardless of time. There are eras but even within that experience can be vastly different. I love life. I love the outdoors. Someone else may say get me out of this stinking fresh air. Lol

Brilliant! I can’t say I was aware of that, but sure am now.

Time is indelibly bound to space, place and person. As it should be.

Great thought-piece, Derek. 🙏

Derek, everything you write and say is so wise and thoughtful and such a pleasure to ponder. You are like a brilliant philosopher. Thank you.

Makes me a bit sad but it’s true. I just moved from the house I spent the last 11 years with my children. It was a home of life laughter pain and surprise but now they are gone to live their own lives. College and young adulting. (So fast). So we moved from Gardena house to a redondo beach condo. And to our second home in Thailand. Those are are 4 dimensions now. And time will change them all.

As a Navy guy & son of an Air Force guy, I have moved a lot & grown up living the truth you described.
Most recently, I've heard NativLang describe the rate of change in relation to languages (spoken & written).
Applicable proverbs:
You can never go home again.
It has ever been thus.
This too shall pass.
We're all dying, everything is a rate problem.

Love this Derek. I've felt this many times over, in many places in the world. It is a fascinating thing. And nostalgia tied to a place feels like its distant cousin.

May I suggest that the fifth dimension of geography is oneself - experiencing a place is a truly subjective experience, much like receiving communication. Everything is filtered through our own lens of perspective, emotion, and history.

If you’ve stayed in the one place for decades, you’re probably less likely to notice the changes to it. Because, I think, they happen gradually.

Hey DS --
It's true L.A. isn't the same as it was when you were tooling around in your red & white CDBABY mini. :^D
But it's good! You may remember me as the guy with the gay-themed "homo-pop" tunes that I first sold on CDBaby (2002). I'm still making music, and even got married on Boxing Day of '24 to my boyfriend of 8 years. We make music together now; I am exceptionally grateful.
It's always great to hear from you.
Cheers!

This is beautiful. Geography is indeed 4-dimensional. Traveling through space is perhaps hoping to travel through time as well :) Thank you for writing!

Derek
This is so true and really speaks to me. I have lived in many countries and cities, and the reality of places (their people and culture) changing is true too. It's nice to see this written and articulated in this simple manner. I will be guest teaching this month an 8th grade at the Austin Waldorf School, where my son goes; it will be his class. As I have lived in Cambodia and Thailand in SE Asia and Kiribati and PNG in the Pacific, their teacher has asked me to come spend an hour giving an intro. I am going to print your piece off and start the class by reading it.

Hope you are well,
Kindest regards,
Jeffrey

Perception and reality 🤷‍♂️. We actually only have now. Regardless of your location.

I know you are aware, change is a challenge for some humans to embrace.

Judgement of a past reality is almost always inaccurate due to change, so if / when you return to a location you knew before. Comparison resets your paradigm to a degree depending on your perceived judgement of any changes.

Being present is a challenge for some humans regardless of their location.

Appreciation of past and present can present challenges to the preference of the individual I think.

Comparison can be unfair or unbalanced because most humans only consider themselves and their point of view or opinion. This can vary greatly from those whose reality you have entered either temporarily or for an extended period of time. Their judgment is of equal value to yours, perhaps more so if you a visitor / observer. If you engage someone with a local perception and share your observation you may gain insight that will influence your judgement. When / if you leave that is the impression you take with you.

Dear Derek,
Agree with you. I left Belgium 15 years ago destination island of Lombok, Indonesia.
Brussels today, 15 years later is over colonized by migrants (legal and illegal) 70% of the people are from totally different cultures.
Another world …

Kind regards,
Jean-Paul 🙏🫶

Amazing article and great point.

A few years ago I returned to my home country after 10 years of complete absence. I had a culture shock from my "own" culture. A few people actually asked if I'm a foreigner because I've developed an accent from living abroad so much. I couldn't understand some slang.

Every little thing revealed that I was a foreigner: I forgot how to order food (you're supposed to come to the seller and be loud, not quietly wait for your turn).

On the other hand, everywhere is becoming Americanized. So if you're on Instagram/TikTok (I'm not), you will probably feel at home in most places as they slowly all become influenced by the same trends and memes.

You are who you were where you were when. Life is dynamic. Your point is well taken. Nothing is static except our thinking. If we’re not paying attention.

And the same applies to people. Any version of me you're holding onto is just an old photo.

Then how is it I’m still just a Masshole, still living in Massachusetts?

JK! Not. Maybe??

Enjoyed this. Definitely resonant with the phenomenon you’re pointing out.

I haven’t traveled a lot though, as evidenced above.

If you came back to Boston now, you would be dodging unruly delivery guys on minibikes and and scooters at every turn.

Which reminds of one of the few big trips I did take. It was to the South of France for a college art program in 1995. I was fascinated. Beautiful women in heels driving scooters through traffic like demons, possessed. Here in Boston it's not that aesthetic vibe for me. How could it be really? Remembering the scooter drivers in France takes a bit of edge off my consternation. I wonder if they're still tearing up the roads on the Côte d'Azur?

I am so moved by this observation, as a South Korean who left the country at age 12 and lived in a number of other countries since then, currently living in the United States. It’s hard not to agree with this observation that a country you once knew has likely changed since the last time you were there. However, just as some things in ourselves remain unchanged through time and space, there may be many important things about a country or place that remain the same through the passage of time.

Dear Sir
Yes, as per Vedic Scripture, a situation has actually 6 dimensions:
1. Location
2. Time
3. Timing - that is the point of progression and perception of the experiencing person and the people of that location
4. Intention
5. Perception of the beholder
6. Reflective Memory and Belief System of the beholder

All this 6 shapes one’s view of the reality

This is from the sage YajnaValkhya in Brahad-Aranyaka-Upanishad
The meaning of Upanishad means Experienced Truth, Brhad means dense and large, aranayaka means forest. This can be known as Dense, Deep, and Immense Knowledge of Experienced Truth given by the great Sage Yajna Valkhya (Yajna means sacrifice, Valkhya means expressing teacher - so his personality can be taken as some one who is self less, sacrificing and teaching from his own experiences)

Hope it sides with your experience and also enhances it.
Yours
VN

Interesting! Very interesting!

Absolutely LOVED this. So true Derek.

I grew up in India (Mumbai) and left to come to Australia in 1987.

We go back every few years and each time it feels like I'm visiting a different city.

The street I grew up on had 'bungalows' (I'm sure you've heard that word before) but now every single one has been replaced but massive high rise apartment blocks.

The air feels thick (with pollution) and it's only cool indoors with the air conditioning on.

The place is unrecognisable each time I visit.

Excellent, as always , Derek. And your observance that WHERE is bound to WHEN is most astute. Re: the U.S. not being what it was is certainly true, it's certainly taken a downhill trajectory in the last 10 years or so. But it's my hope that by remembering that and continuing the awakening that is taking place, we can make it into a U.S. that is everything it can and should be. And become an example which the rest of the world will once again aspire to be.

Totally agree and can relate. The last time I lived in the states was in 1989 for 2 years. I was in LA and loved it, I rode my bike from Santa Monica to the first coffeehouse in Venice Beach every morning 🤷🏻‍♀️ - it certainly is different now.
So I guess I have to say now « ah Paris in the 80’s was glorious » or something to that effect.
Thanks for your post!

Hi Derek,
Long time no see. That's a great piece.

I just had a holiday in Chiangmai during Chinese new year. I always had this wrong thought about Thailand (misled by previous media). I thought Thai people are hostile against Chinese tourists and it must be dangerous to travel there.

But the reality is local people are super friendly and people at different age tried to say hello to you(some of them are not fluent in English but knowing words to express greetings and gratitude). Thai people are mostly very genuine, kind and calm at all situations.

Maybe the wrong impression happened long time ago at extreme occasions. It's necessary to travel around and get to update my "knowledge" towards the world.

Hey Derek,
true. I was on Madeira, Portugal in 2006 and 2007, one week each time. And this March. The same places, really different vibe. Now like 10 times more cars and people. And the best place with Madeira wine burned.

Take care
M.

Yup, and not just geography. The places have changed. I too have changed.

For Indonesian
Specially
For Indonesian like me
Me this time 😊
Visit to West Europe, Amsterdam, Paris etc, is not easy
Not just because it is expensive
But also not easy to get the Visa

But I also understand with what you said in this article
I have to travel to Amsterdam, Paris etc as soon as possible
Because West Europe now may different with Europe in the future
They maybe not as good as i have heard,

I'm grateful that i finally that finally i make my dream come true

And i still find west Europe as good as i expect

Contact me if you come to Jakarta
Hey i wonder why don't you create YouTube channel? Or maybe you have already?

Here some Jakarta from my point of view

youtube.com/shorts/MI6I_jsBO8E?si=nAPH96Ymk1_QdGjN

youtube.com/shorts/-gaim2aVQ-k?si=ln2HJjRIKKHC-EU-

It seems your comments are true. They also can be applied to all actress and pinup girls I liked when I was younger: now that they and myself become older, they don’t have the same appeal to me like in the past! 😅

Hi Derek! This is why I love writing and reading Google reviews. A piece of my memories frozen in time on the Internet. Something I can revisit to remember what used to be. Something people can visit to understand a place better in the past and present.

There is a fifth dimension, and it is the most important one of all. It is implied in the “Parable of the Two Dogs,” which you can Google or just read from here:
open.substack.com/pub/branthuddleston/p/a-tale-of-twos-2-dogs-2-wolves-and?r=1g9mu8&utm_medium=ios

Derek, the world is in constant motion.

It is not just places, we humans too. We are not the same from few years ago - have the same name and face too!

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." - a Greek Philosopher.

I can relate with these thoughts Derek. I grew up in Lagos Nigeria, with such clean streets, cultured youths. I left in the 90s lived in Maryland then LA, then London UK. Last time I was in Lagos the chaos, street urchins, noise where shocking. I also left the UK to Africa in 2016 after 18yrs, I was a stranger among my people. I also wasn't getting the lingo, they called me foreigner. What a thought reflection of time

A clever observation.. and very apt.

Could add .. the only challenge .. we only get to visit in the present.

This is the missing chapter of "Useful Not True" ;)

You are so right I left England in 1977 and I left the UK in 1989 and all the people I’m talking to now so I have no idea what it’s like today I’ve lived in Germany for 25 years America for five years and I spent a lot of time at one point in Asia (Singapore, Malaysia and China) but again that was in the naughties. I am now in a Spanish island in the Atlantic and I’ve seen the changes over the past 11 years so I totally agree with what you’re saying.

this is SSSOOOOO true

I love this perspective! And the same applies to people.

I always tell my wife that we are lucky to have met at a specific time in our lives, when she was the person that she was, and i was the person that I was. At that exact specific time.

Our past or future versions, have they met, might have not fallen in love and appreciation of one another.

The same is true for any opportunity that we have in life. It has to approach us at the right time. Not right by circumstances alone, but right with regards to who we are at the time.

This is so true.

Comparing a place to what it is now to what it was 20 years, or even 40 years ago is asking for being completely wrong. It's even like that in real time. I see RE Agents trying to sell homes/condos/rentals where I'm at. The problem is, they're calling it by the City name, but it's on the other side of the mountain in a different county and not in the city they're claiming it is.

It's absolutely nuts how much places change and people's perspective doesn't.

What a delightful perspective.

I'd say that pretty much everything is subject to being "of it's time", watching the matrix when it came out was an entirely different experience to watching the matrix now. It also feels that for most, and just a bit, we get stuck in the version of a place that existed as we came of age, even as it changes around us.

Love this perspective. It's a really fun one and a thought provoking phenomenon, especially for anyone who travels or moves around and spends extended time in lots of different places!

Hi Derek,

Yeah, I guess this concept works itself right down to spacetime continuum. It's rife with mystery, paradox, irony and all those interesting philosophical truisms etc. I love the comment by Ibrahima - "The future ain't what it used to be."

I think of this all the time. Not only for the places I’d love to take my son to visit when his the right age, but because of the countries I’ve visited and still romanticising about living ten years later. It’s not the reality and the news tells me the place I visited definitely isn’t the place that exists now. However all of this makes the reality that much more depressing.

Agreed...that is the wonder of change, and thank f***...otherwise things would get very dull.

Heraclitus was right

That reflection reminds me of my experience as a Venezuelan immigrant — realizing that the country I once lived in, and sometimes deeply miss, is no longer really there in the same way.

Even when I connect with people who still live there, and I can feel the familiarity, I also notice the difference. It made me think that geography may even be five-dimensional if I include perception.

As always, I love your readings.

Caro

Spot on. Beautifully worded!

I absolutely love this, Derek. Per usual: short, smart and insightful.

Ensuring that we continue to look at life, our path, and the places we visit with fresh eyes is a terrific perspective.

Keep it coming, my man. The journey you are on is wonderful and I am grateful to be tracking along.

100% agree on this. Never saw it with this perspective thanks!

Dear Derek 💓👋🤸
So true.....it is a great memory that we can keep.
I love to create beauty in the place I am!!!
So much fun 😊
Planting apple trees today 😀!!!
Much love to You and Tunes ahead!!!
Rachel 😃👋

I like that. It is a thought-provoking perspective. It is like we are all walking around with snapshots of time of different places.

What a delightful perspective.

Hi Derek, Lukas Brandon here. You were right! I did enjoy the post and agree with it. The past is a place we can never visit again because the "when" has gone away. The arrow of time flies ever forward and so our four dimensional geographic space-time memories are not only unrevisitable, but apparently are inevitably changed each time one recalls them in our brain.

Thanks for the Post.

Lukas

No geography remains the same if people are present. If you are still in the land of the filmed middle earth, has that land remained constant?

You're certainly correct about that. The place I grew up in suburban Southern California, was a treeless, near-desert(ish) valley of wall-to-wall (foothill-to -foothill) newish, stucco tract homes. When I visit family and friends there now I am always surprised at how many, how large and verdant the trees now are that are just about everywhere. The town is unrecognizable at street level. And the number of people and crush of the traffic are insane. Some things got better and some things got much worse.

I also lived in Mexico City back in the early '70s—right downtown, near Chapultepec Part and all the museums and attractions. But I know that since then, there have been some major earthquakes there that destroyed many many buildings and I have to wonder if my old neighborhood would even be recognizable to me if I were to return now and wish to point out to wife and kids where I lived way back when (when I was a student).

Time changes everything. Nothing stays the same. Like the old saying: "You will never cross the same river twice." (or something like that). or in other words, there is no going "home" for any of us.

This explains the difference of opinion about China - I've recently visited and it is so clean yet someone I was talking to was adamant it was dirty, and like you said people were spitting and other things in the street. I should have asked when.

Reminds me of when Bill Gates said that Mexico City used to look like other developing countries just as far back as the 1980s.

I have definitely had that experience. When I was in college in the late 70s/early 80s, I used to visit my family in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. My dad was stationed at the US Embassy there. It was beautiful and friendly, and my brother and I travelled around freely, visiting the Mayan ruins in Copan and the beach at Tela. It is one of my favorite times to look back on.

Now they warn American tourists to stay away from Honduras. The two largest Honduran cities, San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, are perennially listed in the top 10 most dangerous cities in the world. Yikes. Good things do not stay the same, bad things do not stay the same - the world is always changing.

Great observation again!

I like it. Worth remembering. The only constant in life is change. Same with geography.

Thanks.

I recognise what you describe very well, having been born and raised in Helsinki, Finland in the winters 1951 - 1979, and in the summers in Oulu, Finland maybe 1951 - 1968 or so.
1979 I moved to Sweden with my girlfriend (now wife) where we stayed until 1991 when we moved to Ostrobothnia where I got a job at a municipal theatre as an audio FX master, and in 2000 we moved to the Åland Islands where my wife is from.
Especially the people I knew in Sweden and still have contact with, tell me it's different there nowadays, but also the other places have changed.
And people in Helsinki speak differently than they did when I lived there. Not so much the people I knew, but when I see a film with young people from Helsinki, I think they sound ridiculous!

I live in a place that’s always been a memory that you could step into. People would visit here, move here, to live, not as they did, but as we “should;” as if they could bring that other way of living from where they had been and engraft it here without losing what they’d sought by leaving it. And so, slowly, subtly, it is fading to a memory in full, and slipping behind a veil.

I feel grief at that, and tragic loss. But I guess life is like that, because we’re moving in that fourth dimension, too.

Someone shared a poem with me by Robert Lowell called “Skunk Hour.” It’s about this place:

Nautilus Island’s hermit
heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage;
her sheep still graze above the sea.
Her son’s a bishop. Her farmer
is first selectman in our village;
she’s in her dotage.

Thirsting for
the hierarchic privacy
of Queen Victoria’s century,
she buys up all
the eyesores facing her shore,
and lets them fall.

The season’s ill—
we’ve lost our summer millionaire,
who seemed to leap from an L. L. Bean
catalogue. His nine-knot yawl
was auctioned off to lobstermen.
A red fox stain covers Blue Hill.

And now our fairy
decorator brightens his shop for fall;
his fishnet’s filled with orange cork,
orange, his cobbler’s bench and awl;
there is no money in his work,
he’d rather marry.

One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill’s skull;
I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .
My mind’s not right.

A car radio bleats,
“Love, O careless Love. . . .”I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat. . . .
I myself am hell;
nobody’s here—

only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat.
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes’ red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church.

I stand on top
of our back steps and breathe the rich air—
a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not scare.

Super interesting! Reminds me of a philosophical post I'll never write called:

Person is four-dimensional

That concludes... Who am I now?

As a portuguese with a mystical-initiatic bent, I agree with that stance "Geography is four-dimensional", with the remark that the fourth dimension may be the entry door to a range of others, in the "Great Chain of Being" modes of perceiving reality. And we can have a specific flavour of that fourth dimension only if we access the layers of the specific place we're in - and entering the Geosophical mode, the subjective-transpersonal one that acknowledges those unique anima mundi fragrances in each and every ground it touches.

I believe I'm replying with the Fifth Empire layer of my culture - the culture of Fernando Pessoa, as well as Luís de Camões, Padre António Vieira, Agostinho da Silva, Paulo Borges, etc.. I'm also a creator of it at this point.

Thank you for the great works

Derek,
Thank you for the perspective reminder! My own life adventures have put me in places during great times and some crappy times. But it is always perspective that keeps me grounded.
And readings from people like you.
Thank you

I had this conversation with my 8-year-old this morning. She told me she doesn’t believe in Santa Claus and I asked her if she thought the world was real. She said no, and that led to this conversation about the present being the only real moment we can know, and how past and future can only live in our minds. Then she said: “See? I’m right.” We’ve also lived in China and multiple states in U.S. and visited other countries; she is trilingual. Which brings up another dimensional filter. If you are in China and speak Mandarin (she does; I don’t) China will also be a different place. Languages and dialects also add a dimension, as does the age of the person perceiving a place. I lived in Puerto Rico when I was her age, and I spoke Spanish. I’m sure my parents would remember the place differently from me.

So true & yes,reviews of anyplace are always subjective but what I learned from Chasidim is that we must always try to be "joyful" positive
In whatever we do....
You write beautifully...
DH
👍🍻♥️🎉🎸🍦🥳🫵

Exactly! No man ever steps in the same river twice!

One of life's cruel jokes is that we can only be at one place at one time.

It reminds me of when I visited a town I used to party in 10 years later. I thought I would feel nostalgic and remember the good times, but instead I noticed how sad and pathetic these kids looked. I realized I was once one of those kids. This town was no longer for me. It served a purpose in my life, but I no longer recognized the person I was 10 year ago. I had grown and left that world behind me. I want to think I am better now, but I anticipate I'll feel that way about where I am now in about ten years. So it goes.....

Hi Derek,

How true! My wife and I just got back from 30 days in Europe. We visited a few places we had previously (8 years before) and they were very different with one exception. The only thing that wasn't different was the fact that every city we were in from small town Ortigia, Sicily to Paris, France the walls of the city were littered with initials and names of taggers. We saw it eight years ago as well. It was not graffiti art it was just names in some sort of font. have you been to any place that doesn't have tags on walls?

Singapore! ☺ — Derek

You are so right about that, Derek. I lived in Camarillo for two years in the early 70s and when I would visit LA, I had great experiences because of the friends I went with. I went back to Beverly Hills a few years ago and it was very nice in that area still, but neighborhoods in other areas change sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better over the course of fifty years. Most places have gotten way worse with traffic, but if you don't have to drive much, it can be great. TGO Terrific Grasp of the Obvious is what we called this in college. Have you had a chance to just read one chapter anywhere in our book, FROM ENRAGED TO ENGAGED: COUPLES THERAPY: FROM CONFLICT TO CONNECTION AND LOVE by Patrick and Christina Purcell. Some of it might seem like TGO, but most of it can help save a relationship.

Derek, this is absolutely spot on. As they say “I laughed, I cried, I identified.”
Love reading how much others share in and how they subtly differ with this experience. I’ve lived all over the world and the “Where are you from?” question is almost unfathomable. I have a 10 second, 1 minute, 10 minute version like yourself, Derek!

I’m 19 years out from when I first left Ireland & the place I left is no longer. I can only imagine how different LA is from 1999. It’s very different from 2015 when I first started spending time here. Now and then, I’m in a sort of Celtic melancholy, really it’s closer to what the Portuguese gives us as “saudade”, that is on me’ for a time. In the Irish language we say emotions are “on us” and I believe that to be true, and crucially helpful. I’m not my emotions. But what am I? One of my favourite poems, and something I lived first hand when I returned to the ‘auld sod after a decade long exile of sorts is a T. S. Eliot that reminds us
“…the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
Sometimes the literal and metaphorical meet. At that crossroads, and, through the veil; I catch a glimpse.
Perhaps that’s the 5th dimension, and that’s what has really changed.

I think about this often but in slightly different terms: How much a place can change in two decades! Think of Europe in the 40s (war) vs Western Europe in the 60s (culturally thriving). Or compare the US in the 1960s with the US in the 1980s. So, of course, when you're thinking about a place you haven't visited in 20 years, it can have completely transformed.

Times and things change, sometimes for the better, sometime for worst, a lot depends on the people living there. Governments and laws they bring in and laws they enforce or don't enforce make lives worst or better. In these days of woke, life is taking on the feeling of "as in the days of Noha" as the bible says. The bible says also that things will wax worst and worst and then the end will come. Anyone that reads the bible can see things happening now that Jesus said will be happening just before He takes His church out of earth and leaves evil to happen unchecked for seven years. I don't know where you stand on religious things, but I would advise you start reading the bible. It reveals the future so we can be aware of what to expect but we can not know just when to expect it but we can know the signs.

Hi Derek,

Your observation is shrewd.

I do wonder, though, to what extent places, through the passage of time, maintain elements of their identity?

With kind regards,
Sebastien Charpentier

I think you’ve got it covered. If we’re lucky to be present in the moment, every place we’re in is just a snapshot in time of the memory one collects.
Also, since you have collected memories of others, the biases of the individual cloud and reinforce an ethnocentric view seemingly extreme.

I lived on an ARAMCO compound in 3 different areas of Saudi Arabia from 1976 - 1990. It was like a living on a country club then and my family didn't favor us moving back to the USA. But I am so glad we did before the first gulp war. I would not want to be there now.

A 4th dimensional place for sure.

Derek, so much truth in your observations. I can apply it to where I live now (Wiltshire UK) and where I used to live (Northamptonshire, UK). J😃

It's sad that the ideals of America which were so strong before have become a memory. That is why it is important to cling to God as he is the same yesterday today and forever. As I get older and find myself chasing after him through the cloud of unknowing he pulls me in closer to him. I look forward to sharing eternity with him in a place that is so much more stable than anywhere on earth abounding in his love.

Things should always be getting better over time (personal opinion) overall things have been getting worse, unless you are very rich. The future in the USA is bleak.

Yes, I have experienced this many times. I’ve lived in 10 cities in 9 countries and those places no longer exist (at least not like I’ve experienced them).
Our belonging can only be expected in the present.

My younger brother asked me to go back to Staten Island, NY with him late last year. I haven't been back since 2002. Going back to the place where I grew up and spent part of my early adulthood didn't appeal to me.

I knew it wouldn't be how I remember it. Most of the people I grew up with are no longer in my life.

When he came back, he admitted it wasn't as enjoyable as he thought it would be. The best part, for him, was showing his young son where he grew up and reminiscing about simpler times.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

Great words Derek. I can relate.

I absolutely agree! This has been my experience also.
Thank you for the great reminder.

Every experience of a place and time is unique and can never be repeated.
I think it applies to people too.. constantly responding and evolving.

Accepting and adjusting our expectations is another of life's learnings refocusing us to truly appreciate the 'present'.

So true. But we also have a strong desire for a place to stay as it was. I was born in Ireland and moved to Venice, CA at 11 months. Both were different rather quickly but my parents virtually lived in a 1950s Ireland in So Cal. Both places are radically different and even have physically changed.

Great observation again!

I agree Derek. When I meet my friends from Kuala Lumpur - I reminisced about a lot of places and experience from 30 years ago - they said I'm frozen in time. What I described is no longer true. And I felt so old!

An interesting and very true thought on 4d geography, Derek.
I visited Japan several times in the 1980s through business. I was enthralled by the culture and the friendliness. I returned in 2017 for a 3 week holiday with my wife to mark her 60th birthday. I was interested to experience how and if the Japanese culture had changed in over 30 years. I was pleasantly surprised that little had changed. The people were still disciplined, no litter, and very friendly and would go out of their way to help us - so many great experiences in meeting with total strangers.

This is a very interesting topic. Last year I visited Japan again for the first time in 42 years. A lot of things had changed but I still remembered some of it exactly the way it was. In fact, I found three of the four houses that I lived in when I was a kid in Japan and I knew them by sight, I knew them by location, I remembered everything about them.

Also in terms of just being there and talking to the people and remembering a lot about the culture and having my language flow more easily again, I did feel like I was home again. I felt more home there than I do here in the States.

So I both agree with this post but also think there are caveats and cases where those memories absolutely do apply.

The great paradox: the only thing guaranteed not to change is change itself. It's a bit like action. Some of us might think, if I don't choose, I'm staying neutral. But doing nothing is a choice, and therefore, an action too. We're all in the stream of this thing we call life. Just like we can't step into the same river twice (because the flowing water has changes the river minute by minute), we likewise can't stay the same by ... doing nothing, for that is a choice, and everything around us moves anyway--for now at least. At some point in our lives, the rules of the game of life will change fundamentally.

Greetings Derek,
I always enjoy your writing and perspectives.
Yes, it's true mostly. Particularly where we Homo sapiens dominate, which is becoming more & more. I was thinking that there are still some little sleepy towns that have been that way for decades. Also wilderness areas - rainforests, the Himalayas. But you're right even many of those areas are being developed and changing. Since the industrial revolution, all over the world change is happening at an unprecedented pace. From 1974 - 1984 I lived in Flagstaff Arizona which was a small mountain town - Not anymore. What I tend to write about (spoken word w/music) has this element in it. We have become the most invasive species on this Earth. Health Through Creativity, Alex

It's not just the places that change, but people change as well. When I moved to Auckland, I went back to India after a year, and I expected my friends to be the same, and they had all moved on, but then so had I when I moved to a new country.

It gets a bit weirder than that, though.

Recently I went on holiday to Greece, and I am very much into photography. It's not been the first time that I've been to Greece, but this time I went with a different mindset. I wanted to capture Greece from a different time, based on some photographs I had seen. Now, obviously, those photographs had been cherry picked, because it was probably Greece from the 60s or 70s, and the photographer probably travelled a great distance and to some remote areas to capture those photographs. I was pretty disappointed that everyone was wearing T-shirts and jeans, and it's taken me a long time to get over that disappointment, even though I knew it from the start .

Everything changes and so do we. We just don't feel the change until we make a move to go some place else :)

Great reminder.
Also makes me think that these time based changes aren’t as obvious when you’re in the thick of it. Similar to the changes of people. Time and space factor perhaps.

It’s nice to hear from you Derek. Yes the past is something we remember that might not be how it has remained. I hope you are doing well.

Derek, you are right on the money. I’ve been many places in the world but my experiences are just frozen snapshots in time. Well done! For those who have stayed in one place for many years, many want the inevitable evolution to stop and even return to the sepia tinted good old days. Those who pursue the return to retro wind up making their own new reality, usually for the worst. The world moves on regardless.

I’ve been a quiet fan all these years. Carry on.

Kindly, Jess
Now in Taos, NM

I’ve actually been saying this exact idea for a few years now. I tend to say “there’s no such thing as missing a place, only missing a place in time.” The Brazilian household I grew up in only taught me 1980s Brazil, growing up near pre-9/11 NYC means I don’t recognize NYC today, and being in Caracas from 2016-2018 means I can’t relate to the Venezuela of today.

Cool.
Reflecting on how speed/velocity applies to places and relating that with rate of change.

Interesting that you should be thinking that, Derek. I've been thinking the same thoughts about old pictures, and how we fool ourselves into thinking those pictures are in the present. I think it causes us to hold on to a lot of false ideas about what we often call reality.

This is beautifully written and true. I have never thought about it that way, but sometimes I remember the house where I used to live with my grandparents. The house is still standing, but it is very different. The time, stories and energy shared with my grandparents only lives in my memory. The same thing happens to places: you never visit the same city twice. Thank you for such a lovely text.

To echo a bit of what others said here, perhaps WE are 4D as well. I haven't noticed much change in the USA, but my priorities have changed. Younger, I lived in a big city and was out at all hours. Older and wiser and sleepier, I prefer quiet nights to hootin' hollerin' and partyin'! Haha! Rock on, all.

You never step in the same river twice.

The interesting thing for me is not what changes but what stays the same.

30 years ago, people in Sofia used to say that there are no buildings taller than 15 floors because 'the ground is too soft' (tell that to Dubai!). Now they are all over the place. And people in BMWs stop at pedestrian crossings, and there is some semblance of control over smoking indoors, and you can put your seatbelt on in a taxi without the meter suddenly doubling its speed ... the list goes on.

And yet, some things are very much the same - especially when viewed relative to another country. It's the tastes, preferences, quirks. It's the behaviours, it's some of the beliefs (of both infuriating and endearing varieties). And most important of all, it is the smells!!! Blindfold me, put me in the back of a van and drop me in the Borisova Garden in May, and ask me to guess where I am, and I probably will. Same applies to Radhuspladsen in Copenhagen in December.

My biggest disappointment, water in Sofia no longer tastes the same - it used to be glorious, it's now merely very good.

I often think of this idea with gardens. A garden in February (in England anyway) is really not much like the same garden in April, when it will be newly full of bright flowers. I was told once that a good gardener thinks of planting in four dimensions - and the idea stuck with me.
Also: if you visit someone’s garden and say how much you like it they often reply by saying “you should have seen it when the X or Y was in bloom…”

I often think of this idea with gardens. A garden in February (in England anyway) is really not much like the same garden in April, when it will be newly full of bright flowers. I was told once that a good gardener thinks of planting in four dimensions - and the idea stuck with me.
Also: if you visit someone’s garden and say how much you like it they often reply by saying “you should have seen it when the X or Y was in bloom…”

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..."

The opening paragraph of "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens

I grew up in the UK. In my teenage years things had changed you could listen to any music on the internet so I did mostly from obscure countries in languages I did not understand. So when people say you must x artist from the UK I have no idea.

Nice thought. My first visit to the UK and long stay as a student was at the end of the 1960s. I return there from Australia every year on work-related business. The London I knew is no longer that same easy, breezy, fab, swinging city of the 1960s that I knew. Much endures - the city's ancient layout, parks and gardens, and its buildings with the ultra modern side by side with the old. It loves its traditions, of course. But London feels like a different country to the rest of the UK. Get outside its environs and you are in a different world.

It's like the saying, "you never see the same river twice"...the water is flowing, the rocks on the bottom are moving or eroding & the shoreline can change after a big storm. All of that and more.

I’m from here but not this here is profound

You are totally right. I left Argentina in 1990, lived 18 years in México City, then I lived 8 years in Los Angeles and I'm currently located in South Florida since 2017.
Mendoza, my home town in Argentina, has changed a lot in all these years, somethings for good, others for bad. Same with México, Los Angeles and South Florida.
The only thing that is constant is exactly that: change.

Really interesting reflection. As a comparison, research shows that people who emigrate often preserve older versions of their language and cultural expressions longer than people in their home country. In some cases, diaspora communities can sound almost like a linguistic time capsule, like Icelandic that has preserved many features closer to Old Norse.
Other examples are Norwegian-Americans in the Midwest US who kept words and expressions that disappeared or changed in Norway and Swedish spoken by older Swedish-American communities, which sometimes sounds old-fashioned to modern Swedes.

Yep.... I left Australia 20 years ago, and think of going back sometime (I live in New Zealand now). I'm certain it's not like it was. Not sure if that's good, bad, or equal.

Hi Derek,
Interesting concept. I’m thinking of the Rush song ‘Time Stand Still”. Within the process of creating art, the artist ‘sees’ the subject anew. Following this vibe, see ‘The Zen of Seeing” by Frederick Franck….time stands still…

Exactly — and it’s just as true when you’re afraid to move. Deep down, your heart often knows when it’s time to live somewhere else, but your brain clings to a version of ‘home’ that no longer exists. It invents excuses, anchored more in nostalgia and the past than in the reality of the present.

Ah, time. The forgotten dimension with imperceivable yet significant impacts on our perspectives, and a reminder that those perspectives are not as permanent as we may believe.

Your closing thoughts also make a compelling case for all of us to shed those geographic labels altogether and stick with the generic label of 'Human' going forward :)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us!

I'm shamelessly stealing this idea for future intros!

I grew up in Ukraine, the Ukraine from 90s.
I did high school in Texas, the Texas from 2000s.
I lived in Poland, the Poland of 2010s.

Thanks for great idea making geography more nuanced :)

I love observations like this. It contains much wisdom that reflects the fact that life, or the universe if you will, is always, ALWAYS changing and evolving. Not being aware or accepting of this simple law becomes the breeding ground for stereotyping, ignorance, and misaligned beliefs.
I always get a kick out of how we humans have a penchant for summarizing things and quickly put them into compartments, never updating the files. these files are usually based on memories, and yet are used to address current matters. Thanks for inspiring me to have that thought.

This was great - never heard this perspective before. And now that you have me thinking - it's exactly right. I'm traveling to London with my wife in September. I haven't been there since I studied over there in 1990 while in college. I had the best time and loved the people, history, etc., and have waited 35 years to go back. Now I realize I will be going to a different place than I left. I'm sure it will still be great, but I'll appreciate what's there NOW and not compare it with my memories.
Very thoughtful piece - I always appreciate your insights.
Brad

I mostly agree. There are many places that I used to love which I have no interest in returning to: NYC, SF, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, Jerusalem, Chicago, Minneapolis, ... All too crowded, too homogenized, too unpeaceful. All that said, I still think that places (or at least the culture that inhabits them) have their own DNA. New York has lost what made it special and so has Taiwan, but New York will never be Taiwan, or the reverse of that.
By the way ... I have a fun new book coming out this month: www.cambridge.org/core/books/understanding-language-through-humor/84603FB6933FCE9349182086D48FCF3D

Awesome post Derek. So true and has me thinking of all the countries and experiences had over the years, and how the discussions with others about them resonate with your words. Will certainly be asking, when, from now on.

I totally agree. About 25 years ago, my mother and father (both born and raised in Sicily), scrimped and saved to get the money to go back and see their family, friends, and the places they grew up. They were all moon eyed about it and couldn't wait to get on the plane after having been away for 40 years.

Because the flight was expensive and they'd had to save for such a long time to afford it, they decided to go and spend a full 6 months there - they had lots of family willing to take them in for that time.

My dad lasted 2 days before he wanted to come back home to Australia desperately. He absolutely HATED it.

Unfortunately, they'd paid for tickets that didn't allow it so he had to put up with it for the full 6 months.

I think it was the worst 6 months of his life.

Interesting, huh?

One of your other readers nailed it. Because WE have also changed, it wouldn't matter if we went back to the America of the 1980's. Geography is FIVE-DIMENSIONAL!!!

Love that perspective!

I totally identify with this experience. I’m from weird as hell, insulated, pre-internet, naive Portland, Oregon. When I go back now I only recognize the shadows of the buildings and people, not the buildings or people themselves.

And I moved to Brooklyn in 1998. I’m still operating as if it’s the Brooklyn I fell in love with. It isn’t. Might be time for a divorce.

Thanks for your post!

-P

Same thing, but in reverse.
My brother was in Paris in early 2000's and came back and said it was the cleanest, most beautiful, city of his Eruopean jaunt.
I don't think anyone could honestly say anything approaching that today.

I'm a kiwi that has lived in Australia for 34 years. All my identifiers, particularly my accent, my school, the place I grew up, has loosened with time. I didn't realise that it was my family and loved ones that kept me bonded to the place. Once they passed, thankfully of old age, I find that I know longer have those strong connections. I have good memories of places and people but being a New Zealander is no longer the first thing people know about me when they meet me. When I do go back these days, it is the realisation that they have moved on and grown and changed and I am stuck back in the 90s.

A very profound and astute observation there, Derek

I am reminded of that almost every day. Back in 1970 I was stationed in Germany.. When you look across the wall at East Germany it pretty much looked the way it did when the war ended. So years later, I was on a cruise ship and one of the passengers was from East Germany. And I told her what it looked like from the west. She was born after the wall came down.

And she was very angry with me for talking bad about East Germany. Then I took the train to Berlin and the brand new giant train station was in east Germany. I was looking for checkpoint Charlie and I came from the wrong direction. Then I realized exactly what you pointed out.

East Germany is now a beautiful thriving place. The Mercedes complex the brand new railroad station(which by the way is already 20 years old and probably doesn’t look like it did when I was there). And don’t talk about my hometown – that has changed three times in my life.

And so I fully understand this wonderful essay you wrote. And I believe places are not the only thing that this happens to. I think it happens to people too. As my daughter once said: “are you sure he’s been your best friend for over 20 years or was he your best friend 20 years ago?”

And so we move forward and even if we don’t everything around us does.

Thanks for sharing this quite the conversation starter.

Smiles, Kevin.

People ask me where I am from and I like to say "I'm from earth." They laugh and ask seriously where you born from? I reply, "From Neptune." A bit annoyed now, they urge, "Seriously, where?" I say, "It's true, Neptune City, NJ. But it's not what it used to be in the 80's. All the city folks from other nearby states invaded it." I've lived in 7 different states... and it repeats of so much changes and the patterns is clear as daylight. Living in America is distressing for majority of folks who are scraping by. It's just the ultra rich or the poor... no more middle class folks anymore. People changed too overall - all ages... is it because of technology? Have we forgotten the good ole fashion values that makes a neighborhood a community? Yes, it's different.

Indeed, it seems we often realize our memories our a mere time capsule, and the place we left is subject to endless change.

And it's easy to be aware of the change when we return, or maybe never left.

I'm often suspect another's first-hand account of a place, eleven while we are there in the moment!

While in China, talking with locals, I was told so many versions of "China is this way" or "China is that way". Surely they were all true to that unique individuals experience, little pieces of the greater place in its entirety. Sometimes, though, completely different from my own experience!

“ No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” - Heraclitus

Perceptive point Derek and always good to wake people up to change.

Agree that you only know a place at a snapshot in time.
Looking forward to the day when I can stand in a place and dial back time to see how it has changed over the years ;)

True, very true.

Especially the roads.

They change sometimes.

There's this shortcut I used to take in my local area in Ile-Ife.

I went to Lagos for some years and came back for a bit.

People around were like what are you looking for?

I was like "Oh, there used to be a path here".

They were like "Oh, it's been a while...there's no road here again"

"You'll have to go all the way around, pass there" they pointed afar.

There was also a time I traveled to Iwo, a local Area too...

There used to be a shop where I ate yam and beans.

Fast forward to sometime later, I couldn't tell if they closed or moved.

"Oh, she is no more here" people around there said.

She was consistently at that spot, so people knew her.

Wow! I thought.

People, paths and things in places move, similar to the clock.

Tick Tock, like Oh...would you look at that, it's gone!

I got back to Lagos after sometime.

I thought I had seen all the overhead bridges.

"What's causing the Traffic again this time?" I asked.

Funny how you have to shout in the yellow buses called Danfo.

They sometimes say "Wole Pelu Change e" it means get in with your change.

The Long Red Buses although cheaper, is quite suffocating.

It's quite noisy too, busy and full of people going everywhere all at once.

Depending on the area by the way, there are cool places on the Lagos Island.

Some on the Lagos mainland aren't so bad too.

An Uber is quite advisable if you have the money to book one though.

"Oh, it's an overhead bridge they just built" another passenger shouted.

I almost couldn't recognize the paths again.

I cycle though. Risky, but oh the Traffic sometimes. Lol!

"Okay", I thought...deep sigh, "Okay"

So yes, The "When" is important.

Especially when the path or road is concerned.

Grateful for google maps, some newly developed areas don't show up there until they're registered though.

As always a refreshing read.

Thanks for helping people mentally experience many different cultures.

Thanks for clearly communicating in a way that makes people more open minded.

interesting perspective.

thank you.

I totally agree. Although I lived in NYC till 2012, from late 1992-2001 living in there were some of the greatest times of my life, but it will never be the same. That time is in the past…it doesn’t exist. The only way to possibly return to that time, would be by “time travel”. Hmmmmmmm….? With all that said, I do have the “hope” that if I went back one day to my block on
E. 14th St. between Ave. A and B, NYC 10009 that I would have the same “feeing” looking west down the street on a crisp early morning or walking around at night listening to jazz. But that is visual/aural. Would I have the same “feeling” playing a gig at the Bitter End? Maybe… Can we “feel” nostalgia just by being in the same place, doing the same thing, even though it’s 30 years later. Maybe…
Sort of having a hard time pinpoint-defining your “4 dimensions”.

love Love love the insights and thoughts. I am Canadian living in the US and have travelled a bit. oh my yes, our memories of places can get distorted over time. I am heading to Toronto for my 50th high school reunion. It should be another HUGE eye opener. Hugs

Derek,
This is a brilliant insight! Yes, without the time dimension, geography only tells half the story.

"I love Russia!" says Joe.

"Me too," I reply. "Especially in the 17th century!"

Or, "I find Madagascar fascinating."

"Yes, especially when it separated from India 89 million years ago."

Lastly, there is the crotchety man who wants all 4 dimensions to stay fixed forever, even though nothing in the universe is ever fixed. They whine, "Why can't Alabama be like it was in the good old days?"

It's the "who moved my cheese?" effect playing out in 4 dimensions.

Take heart, you're living in the good old days now, according to those who will live in 2070.

This is missing the 5th dimension, where are you in your life and how you relate to the people and place.

University is a fabulous and fun place in you're early 20's but as you enter you're 30's its less fun.

Traveling is the same, Tofino was absolute paradise when I lived there at 23 but going back at 31 and it's not as exciting, but just as pretty. It might be a place I take my family in the future but it's not a solo trip anymore.

Europe at 21 was beautiful and a great place to meet girls, get drunk, and break into unesco heritage sites. I suspect going back later in life wont be the same. The places will look the same, the people may or may not be different but my relation to them will be fundamentally different.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Well, that sums just about all of my education! (Advanced degrees in history and religious education...just to humblebrag) When I go back to my university...it looks the same but it is not. Not a single professor I had still teaches and, although I swear I look the same, no one recognizes me and I don't recognize anyone. Same place...different times.

"You can't go home again." A great title for a book and a clear life truth. As always...love your work.

I know what you're saying Derek. I travel a lot for Music and I'm pretty much loving everywhere I go. But I'm kind of in the Happy music world surrounded by people listening to music etc. Sometimes I come home and people say I can't believe you liked it there it was horrible when we went to fill in the blank for whatever country or State. Obviously geography is time bound but I think we bring ourselves everywhere we go and like Nielsen said in the Piont "you see what you want to see and you hear what you wanna hear"
I think sometimes culturally we bring our expectations with us and that can be a problem if you hold too tightly to those expectations. Thanks for the post as always

You are who you were where you were when. Life is dynamic. Your point is well taken. Nothing is static except our thinking. If we’re not paying attention.

OK, you got me by asking me to read this. I actually have some perspective on this. probably not different from your own children.

I was born into a military family in 1959. I was born on an Army base in Massachusetts. It was decommissioned in the 1980s, and the old wooden Army hospital I was born in was torn down. In fact, due to some legal issues around being born on Army bases at the time, my birth certificate doesn't name the base, instead the closest town to the old hospital location, which is Shirley MA.

None of that is there anymore, and if I went back to where I was born, nobody would know me and I wouldn't know anybody. So, there's no cozy "hometown" experience for me cherish. That's just how that cookie crumbled.

When I was 2 we moved to North Carolina for a short period (I believe 6 months) while my Dad went to a base in southern Germany. We joined him in Germany when I was three and lived there three years. Then every couple of years we bounced back and forth between Massachusetts, Virginia, and Germany. We last lived in (West) Berlin during my puberty years (11-13), which was kind of wild. Berlin - and Germany - were split, and Bonn was considered the capital of West Germany. I haven't been back since.

Needless to say, the Germany I lived in 1971 - 1973 is not the same Germany as today.

Not only that, the Massachusetts I lived in, and the Boston I visited as a kid is not the same one. The Patriots were an "expansion team" (that's what we called new football franchises in those days), and were the biggest losers in the NFL in those days (yes, even football has changed).

After we came back from Germany, we moved to Raleigh NC. My parents were both from small towns in North Carolina, and by the way neither of those small towns are like they were when I lived at my grandmother's house in 1962.

I attended senior year in HS and 4 years at UNC in Greensboro. I graduated in 1984.

In 2011 I attended a family reunion on my (late) mother's side in the small town of Scotland Neck, NC. My mom's father was a farmer and raised his two sons and four daughters in the old farming life. Well, now the farm has all been sold, and no one lives in the farmhouse. A cousin keeps it mostly just for sentimental reasons, and has family events there occasionally. My uncles are all dead (amazingly, I still have two aunties in their late 90's!), and the cousins I used to ride horses with are all in their 60's, like me.

Talk about changes! I didn't even know most of the people at the family reunion because they were all born after I left NC in 1986. Me and my brother did get a lot of respect for being the older, original family guys that had traveled the world, so that was nice. They wanted to hear stories from places they'd never been, so that was kind of fun.

So if you were raised moving around the planet like the post WWII (boomer) military brats were, the fact that "when" factors into the places you've lived is kind of built-in. I never even really thought about it that way.

That's why the term "four dimensional geography" caught my eye.
Yes, it's technically the correct way to describe the phenomenon, but I just never really thought about it using that term before.

I know you have at least one son, but anyway, even if you have more kids, I know you have been taking them around the planet with you, so this perspective probably comes naturally to them as well. But again, I doubt you hear them using the term "four dimensional geography" very often, do you?

Anyway, it's on my list to go over to your site and get up to speed with your online presence again. I'll never forget how you helped me with your kind review when I was building the Yoginis world jazz project.

You'll always have a friend in Seattle, at least until I move away, likely soon after I start getting my full social security at age 70 (that will be late 1929). I'm missing India and I have also kind of fallen in love with Portugal. In fact, I'm heavily considering Goa, where I have a good Portuguese friend whose family estate is there. In Goa, I'll have some Portuguese culture and some Indian culture. I hear they have a small but vibrant music scene there, and they like East-West fusion. In fact the scene is called "the Goa-Jazz" scene. It would be fun to connect with a few good musicians in my golden years there.

Remember to reach out if you're ever back in the PNW. We'll meet for a hike or something fun.

Take care!

To most of us you will always be the CD Baby guy from the Myspace days over 20 years ago. I found my Plastic Parachute CD in my car yesterday.
You want to talk about time travel and different moments in time in different places? As someone in the UK I used to enjoy re-visiting places across France, Spain, Poland and around England, Wales and Ireland especially. Increasingly I found it bewildering and sometimes disturbing how an exact place evolved, as I either mis-remembered or simply the magic was lost when going back.

Nostalgia is a big, fat liar.

I find it interesting how we associate a village with the people who live there. When I get the chance to return to my home town I see it hasn't changed at all. It's the houses, businesses, and other accoutrements that have been added which cause the alteration.
It's not the place, but the people who have changed.

I totally agree! My husband and I traveled to Thailand and Cambodia several times 2000 - 2003. We went back in 2011 with the expectation to visit all the cool places we saw last time. But it really was like visiting totally different countries. The tourist infrastructure had grown massively and basically totally ruined it. But people make a better living off the tourists now, so who can blame them.

This is so very true! Makes me think of how I visit places and even still, see them as they were, not necessarily how they are now

Great reading, thanks. I also think that while the places inevitably evolve, there is a subjective dimension where we change our perspective of the places as well. I lived around LA in the early 90s and I've lived in New York since then and I've been back and forth here and there. The essence of both places has not change for me with my experiences. Cheers

So very true. Until recently (I moved to Yunnan province last year), I'd lived in Beijing for over a dozen years and lǎo(old) Beijingers which I now count myself a member reminisce on the golden years. When I'm asked whether I'd move back to NYC, I tell people my NYC died a couple of decades ago, while the same can increasingly be said for my America.

This is why I moved from NYC to Beijing, from Beijing to Dali. The first two places were perfect for me until they no longer were, at which point I move the a new place that fits me best.

But that 4th dimension works both ways. It's not only that places change, people change over time and certainly our perspective.What I wanted and valued in life while living in NYC were very different from today which is why I live at the foot of Cangshan mountain overlooking Erhai Lake. How long I stay in Dali may depend more on my evolving perspective than any changes that occur here.

I'm visiting the country of my birth, England, for the first time in four years.

Though some of scenery will still be the same, it is not the same place. As a child, I remember where I used to hang out with my friends and the local sweet shop I used to go to (on my own) for a bag of 1-penny chews. I remember the comic shop, the library, the youth centre.

As an adult, those places are no longer there. I look for somewhere to get a coffee (somewhere that never existed when I lived there), somewhere to sit in silence and read a good book. The city I was brought up in is a different place. Geography is four-dimensional.

Well said, Derek, and for the most part I agree. But I'm curious what you mean when you say:

"I used to describe myself as American, but that’s becoming less true with time. I’m from the America of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s.

But that place is long gone. It’s not like that anymore."

If you're referencing pop music, movies, automobiles, fashion and trends, you're absolutely right! It's a brand new world.

But what I miss most are the societal attitudes and beliefs most Americans once subscribed to. For example, in the '60s when America was struggling with national racial discrimination and segregation, Martin Luther King Jr. led the way in changing attitudes and laws through nonviolent peaceful civil disobedience.

Sixty years later, many legacy media outlets and public protesters advocate violent and destructive demonstrations in trying to address much smaller problems, such as the George Floyd riots or the opposition to "Operation Metro Surge".

I created a song and lyrics that explains my point of view.

"The Streets We Used to Know"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTg6i7tTVKQ

I hope you enjoy it!

Robert Burtis

Hello Derek,

I was reading through Google AI Essentials and too a brief break to search for something in my email and saw an email from you. I quickly opened to read the content and immediately I related the Four-Dimensional concept to my learning of AI has knowledge cutoff limitation. In order to reduce the knowledge cutoff, we should specify timeframes in prompts and ask follow-up questions if answers seem outdated.

Thanks for the write up. I hope you and your son are having fun exploring off-grid.

- Sarath

Happened to me too on my first trip back to Barcelona after 7 years living in Lhasa. I couldn’t stop comparing everything to my childhood memories.

Some places are physically stuck in the past, the infrastructure never evolves, but the inhabitants do. The population gets replaced, and little by little the city loses its soul.

I completely agree. The places I've lived people also talk about and its completely different today than when I lived there. Naples, Florida for instance I lived in during the 80s when there was still land, woods and everything other than concrete high rise condos. It's a foreign land to me now.

Enjoy your work so much, thank you.

I couldn't agree more!! I recently driving around my hometown and was nocting what had changed or remembering what it used be when I was young. Since places change so gradually you don't really realize until you have time away or reflect on it.

Hey Derek,

This is likely truer today than ever before. We’re no longer living through slow, incremental cultural change. Technology, AI, politics, economics, media, and social norms are now evolving at a pace where places can become fundamentally different within just a few years.

A city, country, or culture isn’t just geography anymore, it’s a snapshot in time. People often argue about places while unknowingly describing entirely different eras of the same location.

The “America” of the 1990s, the “China” of 2002, or even the “Los Angeles” of 2015 may no longer meaningfully exist except in memory.

Barry

This is so true, Derek. I think this post is an eye opener for many of us including me. You know many a times, we fix our experiences and give the same propaganda for others who want to know about that place. I have done this mistake too, I guess. The point is everything is changing, people, place, culture, everything, in fact at a pace faster than ever.

Also, interestingly the same time experience could feel so different to two different people. I have come through this situation a couple of times. We did a local trip to a small village in West India with an office colleague (we are from same state). When I was enjoying the rawness, normalcy, simple local cuisine of this place, she was so irritated by the same experiences.

Tagline is 'Go Experience Yourself' !

This really rings true.

On a related matter, what we experienced (and how we remember) the past—places, people, and events are time-based slices of our lives. You can't go back to any of it, except through memory, and shared memories with others.

But experiencing memories is just as real as what we think we experienced at the time, in the past.

Excellent way to put things in perspective, this reminds me of relativity as well as old parable
You dont step in the same river twice

Well said.

Visiting places I used to live has always felt strange.

Japan especially.

I lived there for over 18 years, and for the last four years I’ve been going back three times a year.

For a while, every return still felt like “coming home.”

But that has slowly changed.

Now, when I’m in Japan, I no longer feel like I am home.

I enjoy being there. I value it deeply.

But I now find myself looking forward to getting home - to the Gold Coast, Australia.

Maybe that is the point.

A place is never just a place. It is a place at a particular time in your life. Japan was home then.

The Gold Coast is home now.

Hi, Derek. As always, a great, intuitive, and inspirational post. Thank you for sharing. I think maybe there's a fifth dimension. As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I lived for 32 years until six weeks ago, when I moved to Traverse City, Michigan. The fifth dimension, I think, is your connection to the geography, because the experience of being here for the first time as a visitor, not a resident, adds a whole other layer to how I view the surroundings, even those I was once (recently) extremely familiar with. From the moment I stepped off the plane and picked up a rental car instead of my own car in the parking lot, everything felt different. As I sit here now, I am physically in Fort Lauderdale, at a time that I'm pretty familiar with (I was here six weeks ago, and many consecutive years before), yet today it is different. It is no longer home. I don't live here anymore, and thus, for the first time in 32 years, I am experiencing a familiar place through the lens of a visitor... the fifth dimension...

Nostalgia for a time and place is a narrower version of this idea. I love your more expansive version (thinking about connecting time and space for both things I like and things I don't). Thanks for this!

That is a very interesting analysis. It made me think about my hometown. I remember when I like living there. It has changed so much. Some may call it progress, but progress isn't necessary what is best for the city. I have traveled and gone to many places and revisit some of them. The first time it is a wonderful visit because you look with fresh eyes, then on the second visit it wasn't that wonderful.
Very interesting coming to the conclusion that geography is four-dimensional.

I like the article :-)
It reminds me of Alan Watts discussing people asking how things are in a geographical region with an eye to move to a better place. But the wise rebuttal was: "How are things where you are now? It'll be like that here." That is to say your own perspective, attitude, and behaviour will dictate how things are for you wherever you are.

I like this Derek. I grew up in Dublin Ireland and I loved it there. Moved to Sydney Australia for a one year working holiday in 1997, and yeah still in Sydney. I love to visit the states, I love the American people, some of the most decent folks I ever met. Being Irish visiting the states definitely helps with connecting. The Ireland I left is still there, I visit as often as I can. It is not the same country I left. It has developed a confidence it didn’t have when I was a kid. It has had a huge influx of immigrants from all over the world and it has thrived. There are always new challenges with change and I think they are what defines the country over time.

This is so very true. I live in California, USA, and I love it here. I am originally from Germany, but the last time I visited was in 2012. I felt out of place. It was a weird feeling, but it made sense. The last time I lived in Germany was 1999. What my friends there tell me doesn't sound like what I knew.

Love! I think where is bound to when is bound to who ✨️

Maybe even more than 4 dimensions. (If perspective is a dimension.) I’m from America, lived there until I was in my 30’s, moved my family to China for 6 years, then moved back to an America that seems different than the one I left. It’s interesting to talk to my kids about their experiences living in all of the same places that I lived in. Sometimes, you’d swear we were talking about completely different places. Their memories, feelings, and overall attitudes about each of those places are very different than those of my wife and me. Our age/maturity, personal situations, etc affect our perspective of the geography too in ways we don’t notice until we move away from that place/time/situation. Maybe growth is the 6th dimension?

Completely on target. I’ve lived internationally for over 40 years in several different countries. My Jordan cultural experience in 1986-1989 had transformed significantly when I returned in 2018-2025. Not necessarily in a negative way, but in ways that were almost exponential.
There are places I don’t want to return because I prefer to remember them as they were, Kuta, Bali for example.
Your idea of 4 dimensional geography fits these transformations perfectly.
Thank you for stating what seems to be obvious in clear and thoughtful way.
BTW, I am also “American” but I’m more of a tourist when I return now.
Cheers, Greg

Reminds me to say,
“I didn’t like it then.” or
“I loved it when I was there”
The same way some people say, “I’m not good at it yet.” It’s a bit of leeway for you to grow or reconsider.

Fully agree - Whenever someone finds out I'm Argentinian and tell me how they liked some city when they visited it, I always ask "when did you visit _x_ city?" and try to recall the social and economical conditions of that moment.
It's been so long I haven't lived in my home country that I feel rather a stateless person than an Argentinian...

A slightly different perspective and without being cynical (and I’m glad I bought this CD from you…)

“I went back to Ohio and my city was gone.”

I’ve lived a life of 4-D Geography and I’m better for it.

I was born, raised, and educated abroad. One of my parents was American. People call us third culture kids. We are children raised in a culture separate from their parents. I am American and I’m not. I learned this early in life by coming back to the States every few years on vacation when I was a kid. It was, in essence, a trip to a foreign country. And now, as an adult, no matter the era then or now, I am still an immigrant in my own country and at home in the one that was not. And neither of them are the places they were then.

“And that’s alright with me”.

This is such a thoughtful & thought-provoking piece. And as with a lot of your writing, the comments are as much fun reading

this is great framing, Derek. I keep thinking about Bengaluru in the same way all the time, and the change is more rapid and more unevenly distributed

Good point. What if geography has a fifth dimension: your vibration / consciousness. As within, so without.

For example, two people with different attitudes visiting the same place at the same time will have different experiences.

Loved the 4D concept. Born and raised in Atlanta and moved to London and Amsterdam for 5 years with family. The 4d dynamic can happen even within a few years

This is so true and a reminder that we may not ever truly know a place in its true form because it doesn’t exist. As places, like life, is fluid, flexible, resilient and patient with time.

Oh, this makes me nostalgic. I grew up on the west coast of Ireland(Galway). I left at 22 in 2008, and have been in Australia ever since. I long for a culture that was, but I hope, maybe still is Ireland!
Your post made me realise, perhaps it’s not Ireland I miss but a period in Ireland.
Great post

Paul

Very well put! As they say, you never step into the same river twice.

Maybe every claim about a place has a half-life.

Some layers decay slowly: food, architecture, landscape. Others decay fast: prices, safety, slang, politics, neighborhood vibe.

So the next question after “When?” might be: which layer of the place are we talking about?

Hi Derek!

Not sure you remember me but I wrote to you last year about living in Dubai after you were on Tim Ferrisa’ podcast talking about your trip.

Totally agree with this post! I’m British and last lived in the U.K. in 2001 before I moved to the Netherlands. I then lived in Malaysia, back in the Netherlands for a while and then Dubai for the last 15 years. Dubai 15 years ago vs now is unrecognisable in terms of development, their ambition hasn’t changed. The U.K. seems to be going in the opposite direction which is sad but I don’t see that changing any time soon. On holiday in Vietnam a couple of years ago I dragged my husband and kids to Nha Trang where I went in 2001 and it was a cool, backpacker, party beach town. Now it’s all high rise hotels and Russian tourists in speedos! Nostalgia can be a powerful thing 😀.

Hi Derek:
I tend to agree with your interpretation and analysis of the 4 dimensional emphasis of our perceived realities of time, place, space and even people. Living in the present I think gives us a better perspective of life and we should look at its pass and take the positive memories from that and apply that to the present. One man's interpretation of a past experience may look and feel different according to its timeline.
Thanks,
Norma

Reminds me to say,
“I didn’t like it then.” or
“I loved it when I was there”
The same way some people say, “I’m not good at it yet.” It’s a bit of leeway for you to grow or reconsider.

And then we, ourselves, change too, interacting and perceiving differently.
One person might surf on a fantastic wave of hospitality while another is just homesick, at approximately the same time and place.

I also noticed this even in my own country. I live in the province when I was younger and moved to the city when I started working. I came back to my hometown and a lot has changed.
It's similar to your other thought about keeping your skills updated, or else it expires.
When you're away too much from a place you once knew, some things stay the same but a lot can also change that you don't recognize it as the place you lived in.

I think same goes for people as well. Circumstances changes and shapes their thoughts and beliefs over time. Someone who appeared to in a certain way long time back most probably would have changed deep inside

Same with people. Helmut today is different person than Helmut from 2002

Yep. I lived in Beijing from 2018-2020 and it was a completely different world compared to when I first visited in 2012. I'm expecting more big change when I likely visit this summer.

I lived in Amsterdam during the early 90s and have fond memories of the place. When I discuss with locals, who still live in my area in Amsterdam, they politely remind me my memories of the place are purely in my head. Things have changed.
However, I prefer my nostalgia of Amsterdam back in the days, because it has sentimental value I could grab on to.
Indeed geography is four-dimensional.

With apologies to trekkies everywhere...
"It's Belfast, Mark, but not as you knew it."

I grew up there and left in the 80s but beam back down for the odd family visit. Set a course for home, Mr Sulu. (Japan for many years.)

"The man who fears change is like a prisoner who has grown fond of his chains. He calls them comfort and calls freedom chaos." - Diogenes, the Doge?

Indeed. Totally agree. Things are changing. Especially this happen quite often for immigrants.

I like this perspective. It holds a lot of truth.

At the same time, you know how we sometimes say that some things never change? I live in Greece for the past 52 years. I travelled to very few places compared to you, of course. I think enough places, though, to help me realize something. Most people are fundamentally the same. Even with cultural differences. There's a baseline that makes us human.

Traveling also helped me appreciate Greece more. I used to complain all the time about how things are broken, how I wished Greeks were more like this and that. Now, I don't. I mean I will whine from time to time. But only to quickly go back to accepting things the way they are. You can't have everything I guess. And when I listen to people moving to Greece from countries like the US, the UK, and more, I am always surprised at how they love more things here that I take for granted.

Having said all that, I agree people may be stuck with stereotypes that were created years ago, but are not true today. Take an example from Greece. If you ask almost every foreigner how Greeks have fun, they will probably mention that we throw and break plates while dancing. We replaced plates with flowers now, LOL.

What I generally try to avoid is take someone's stereotyped idea of how a place is, without a grain of salt. Blanket statements like all Americans are like X, or this city sucks because of XYZ, need an update from time to time :).

Totally agree, I’m only American from 60s, 70s, maybe 80s. I’m NOT American 2024-2028! I wish I could go back to my happy hippy days….

rats (college nickname)

5th dimension - the weather. I’m traveling along the north coast of Spain right now and meeting folks, comparing notes. I live in Bilbao in the Spring, lovely. Others disliked the place, but they were in winter and are not fond of rain. Same place just in a different dimension of temperature or wetness….

Have to agree. I left the US in 2004 and haven't been back even for a visit for the last ten years. The locations were the same, the views were largely the same, but the people were different. Foods, fashions, expectations, activities had all changed. Even the language was different.
One of the benefits of bicultural vision is the ability to see rules are arbitrary, fleeting, and suitable for one tribe at one space/time. But not universal. Yet most people remain monocultural, resisting the relocation bug because it leads to an unclear future with the possibility of uncomfortable changes to something worse, maybe even involving thinking.
As you wrote, the same is true of the fourth dimension, time. Even if we don't leave one familiar setting (hometown, relationship, career) time changes everything anyway. Mostly, in my opinion, for the better from a technology sense. Not sure if society has gotten any better... but maybe that's just me getting older.

There are also islands of a frozen time. In Munich we have a few Russian grocery stores. I don't know the owners, but I bet they have moved to Munich in the nineties. Everything inside screams about that: Russian dolls, vodka, caviar, cheap detective books. Only a carpet on a wall is missing.

But these shops are not special, we all live in the past.

As Marshall McLuhan put it: "We look at the present through a rear-view mirror, so that we march backwards into the future".

Thoughtful perspective. I agree with you...

And sometimes it’s also subjective... the same place can feel completely different to different people, even at the same time.

This totally aligns with my experience as someone who spent 40 years living in a country other than the one I grew up in. Inevitably, your idea of the "old country" freezes when you leave. Meanwhile, things keep changing and evolving--as they should--but memories can't.

There's a great evocation of this idea in the movie Bhaji on the Beach.

What struck me most is that time changes us too. Even if a place stayed exactly the same, we wouldn’t experience it the same way twice because we’re different people each time we return. Memory edits places into stories, and nostalgia quietly fills in the gaps.

Maybe that’s why reunions with old hometowns can feel so strange — you’re not only meeting a changed place, you’re meeting the ghost of your former self there too.

Thank you for your writing. I relate to what you wrote - I have some friends whose parents left Romania in the 70s and up until now they still see it through the eyes of communism and later, through the poverty of the 90s.

I return to Romania often (having left in 2015 to study abroad), and just in 10 years the town I am from flourished into something completely different. The place I left behind is gone, together with the people who also left in the meantime.

I write often about places, as I kept moving in the past ten years to different countries, and the places I long for are all gone. I tried revisiting some of them, but I see only traces here and there. Memories are our time-travelling skill, but even as we remember some things, the thing is that we also changed in the meantime, so I am not sure to what extent we truthfully remember a place.

You are right. Australia is losing its amazing prosperity to a third world
Country. Trump has set the world on a course of uncertainty even collapse. The USA is also losing any of its pride.
I was hoping for whatever life I have left would be prosperity concious based. YouTube is showing amazing videos of how the world can be, my only hope for the young children of today to forfil a life of no wars no famine and a world united in Love and Respect.
Music withe a love energy composed from the heart and soul will assist to guide the future to thr new consciousness that is beginning to emerge.
Ken Davis
International Composer Of
music
www.kendavismusic.com

I own up to being 22, as being 21 doesn't stand single look...

As others have noted about standing in rivers... and it is nearly 40 years since my first central London project opened and is now swallowed by NY like towers.

My almost 20 years in Dubai (almost zero graffiti) saw almost as much change as the previous 20 years and the 20 before that...

Five-D... the place changes like the river, plus we change ( I hope to god we do) and different points of touch become more or less important...

Locations and times shared are even two versions of the same experience, as 'they' bring their baggage, much of which 'you' can't know... language, age, gender and their prior exposures... all 'colour' the glasses tinting so much. The multiverse all in one hand, even... : )))))))

Be safe, have fun, and...

Hello Derek,
Yes it's true how people perceive things differently as time changes everything. Here in the UK it was once the most respectable and cleanest country to live. Everything was fair. Everyone spoke the same language (English) People had to apply to immigrate and was scrutinised and valued to what one had to offer the Country. Not now, Governments and Politicians and their scruples have changed. The arrival of thousands of economic illegals on beaches along the coast who don't speak the language and have criminal intent, think they have a God given right to invade and demand a generous living all at the expense of the working tax payers. Yes, it's not the same UK anymore. It's much worse.

Year ago I was fascinated by the concept of sand mandala. In the end its a perfect metaphor for everything, including this post.

Brilliant. A valuable insight. Condensed to the essential point. Thank you for this gift of insight.

❤️

In general what you describe is true but it depends on the place. Some places like China (China where? I assume you mean the cities) change much faster and more drastic than others. In Japan the face of a place like the buidlings and physical environment (architecture) changes all the time because here buildings are built for perceived lifespan of 30-40 years. But the inner workings of society change slowly and only superficially.

This is so true. I left Scotland in 1983 and have lived in the Netherlands since then. I can’t relate to the UK as much as I did growing up. My sister who stayed there doesn’t quite ‘get it’ & often thinks I’m being a bit pretentious as a result. My brother on the other hand has a broader view and understanding even though he too stayed in Scotland.

Nice to see you've changed the groups of decades regarding who you are/were.

And you put a question mark from 2026 onwards...

I guess we should always be different people, who are shedding different skins in life until we die, eh?

As for the geography, yeah, places can and do change too, unless it's a small town/village in rural England. :)

I watched a travel vlog yesterday where the owner of the channel was visiting China for the 6th time. My thoughts echoed was people typically think about that, especially if they haven't been there recently.

I have some sorts of a similar feeling: the places where I lived and loved, I feel a reluctance to visit again. Somehow they need to stay as they were when I was there.

Hi Derek
Yes this is an important observation. Another dimension is our state at the time we were in a particular place. I was in LA in the seventies and eighties and enjoyed it. Not sure it would be the same for me now. The same with London or anywhere.
I'm working through the Positive Intelligence program with my coach and have just contacted the essence of who I am through a photo of myself as a child with my mum. Not sure where it was, but I certainly looked happy! It could probably have been anywhere.

Interesting Derek, thanks for sharing!

That resonate with everything I have experienced. I think you define life by the present.

Het is Moro or les a statistical general Truth yes. Countries better cultures are not United so in time the majority but small parts stay more in the past for a while parallel to a small part that evolves much faster and from the standpoint of the general population their ideas are in the future. So when two persons meet each other different combinations of conclusions are possible depending on where on the statistical scale they experienced the past. The problem of language is generalizations and category. Every meaning of a word comes out of a category and a category is a fixed past definition. So our memories that give meaning are better holds meaning is a generalized meaning. Only the truth that can never change is immune to generalization as in the end it is the foundation of consciousness itself, 😉

I agree on your concept of four dimensions of geography. The five themes of geography only take you so far in knowing a place. You do have to be there and experience it.

The people of a place are that fourth dimension. They shape the geography beyond the obvious five themes.

I was reminded of that as my daughter graduated college this week. I had worked at the institution she graduated from. I did not like the direction the new leader was taking and I exited.

The place I left had a different fourth dimension during graduation. I was impressed by what I saw and I was happy to see what I was experiencing.

I think useful not true ties into your post. You need to know the truth of a place before you make a real assessment.

Thank for the post.

so so true as an inmigrantr to america and leave most of my life in south florida i seen many waves of change ,definitely waves stronger than any individual also america as being a very dynamic society a lot more open to change ,while in older cultures in different parts of the world specially gerontocracyes they deal with change confront it with denial ,ho whale....

You are absolutely correct. Time matters in most instances. I’m from TN and live in NC. My experience in TN seems to be outdated, however, I can still “feel” the racism I lived through as a child and teenager. The place has grown in size, but not in culture. I totally agree with you though.

Such a useful observation. I moved to Miami a few years ago and the neighborhood I live in was ‘invented’ in 2007, so many Miami natives who have left the city have never even heard of it, even though it’s my daily reality!

Very relatable and I can right now liken it to humans, we definitely aint today as we were yesterday

Awesome post Derek. So true and has me thinking of all the countries and experiences had over the years, and how the discussions with others about them resonate with your words. Will certainly be asking, when, from now on.

Yes agreed.
All we really have is a moment in time.
That’s the reality we have.
That is what we remember.
I used to work in healthcare and we’d occasionally be subject to an inspection. We would request remedial work to be done for example cupboards to be painted and sometimes they would only be painted the day of the inspection, as in at 06.00.
The inspectors would notice nothing. That was the new reality. They were happy with the cupboards. There was nothing to see.
The previous reality (and cupboards) replaced.

Derek — this is a beautiful frame. Where is bound to when. Past tense only, unless you're standing there now.

I'd add a fifth dimension: who.

I like to eat burgers and slap my belly.

Yes true. It wuld be nice if our schools taught critical thinking - or thinking on more than one flat idea welded to the surface. Here in America right now I get the feeling that nature/God is hoping we will re define ourselves

Completely agree, and I think it goes beyond just geography.

It also depends on the lens we carry inside ourselves. The same place, the same person, the same event , but with a different inner perspective, it becomes an entirely different experience.

So maybe the real question isn't just "when were you there?" but also "who were you when you were there?"

So wonderfully true and provocative. I’ve been fortunate to live and work in a number of countries and the question that has often stumped me is, “what’s it like there?” Your perspective has given me a frame by which to answer. E.g. I can speak about Moscow in 2012, NOT 2026.

I love this take - and I also know that as far as places have evolved, I've also changed, so my perspective on a place I knew has adjusted as well.

I left England just a short 7 years ago - we've both come a long long way baby!

"Things do not change, we change" - Thoreau

Thanks for sharing Derek.

Derek,
Whether it be a company you formed or a city you lived in, you can NEVER go back!
It's the experience you have at that time is what you fall in love with.

Just take our two companies! You distributed our jazz shows. YouTube streams our tv shows which I hired the late Charlie Byrd to produce all original music background for the 800 cooking shows from around the world. Last week I received notification that they can't pay me streaming because CD Baby owns the music! I never signed off nor sold my music to CD Baby. Things changed and I just shrugged it off. I'm 88 and it's not worth fighting..... just move on.

Couldn't agree with you more living in OC California over the last 40 years and growing up in a small northwestern "burb" of Chicago!

My family came to the USA in 1951 after escaping Czechoslovakia from Nazi and Communist tyranny. My dad was a very proud Czech serving as a lieutenant in the Czech army before being ordered to stand down and having his country be taken over by the Nazis and ultimately by the Commies.

My dad's years in America were fruitful and his service to this country was second to none. It included a civil engineer, policeman, canine instructor (dogs bred in Czechoslovakia), EMT, active member of the Lions Club and finally a crossing guard for children at a local Catholic school. He passed away in 1992 and would not recognize what's happened to America over the last 3-4 decades which is exactly your point!

I just finished writing a book "Preserving Freedom" about my family's (mom, dad and brother) journey escaping Czechoslovakia, their successful transition to America and the influence it had on my son, Tom. I will be going back to the Czech Republic in September to retrace many of my family's steps and it will be one hell of a bucket list item for me to experience. Lest we forget the freedom we have and how fragile it is!

Really loving this expanded viewpoint, thanks!

space and time are bound by the speed of light. einstein, feynman and sivers.

Totally.
Reminds me of the Heraclitus quote: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

I agree. 1991 I went on vacation to the Maldives. The tiny island (mostly palm trees), the blue water, the colorful fish and corals - it seemed to me like paradise. I was sure: If ever I get married, this is, were I´d like to spent my honeymoon. 10 years later I went back : The corals had died, the palmtrees were gone and the space was used to get rid of trash, produced by tourists. This was 2001. I don´t want to know what the place looks like today...
2004 I was working in New Delhi, India for a few months. I loved the little markets, the traditional stores and stuff. 2017 I went back to find huge shopping malls with the same kind of stuff I can buy at home. I still feel disappointed.

Yes I too feel this way but never thought of it as 4th dimension. After growing up in Denver I lived in SF from 90 to 98, LA 98-2000, NYC 2000-‘23. I’m now in PNW. Each of those cities have changed a ton. It seems nostalgia has folks say oh it was so much better back then……. Tho your China example is good. People talk about how great nyc was in the 80s and 90s. But every single person had been mugged at least 1x. I never was accosted in nyc or have anything stolen except for 3 bikes locked outside in my 20+ years….

I now think I’m 4 dimensions!

Time remains the only constant. A snapshot in. Otherwise evolution to entropy.

My Norwegian grandparents settled in the far northwestern corner of Minnesota. My earliest memories include our farmhouse where life was still wonderfully simple. There was no electricity, no indoor plumbing -- just the rhythm of daylight, wood heat, “honest work” and the quiet strength of people who made do with what we had.

On my last visit to the now abandoned farmstead, the major concern of my kids was how they would get a Wi-Fi signal.

Good night, John Boy.

My dear friend… hi mate,
So great to hear from you and to read your piece.
It brought up so many things for me… but especially a big YES! Because I have had all those experiences myself, and heard them from others.
Last year, a friend of mine who is from the UK and now lives (as you do) in New Zealand, returned to visit her father just out of London. I said, “Oh how wonderful, I love London”. She asked, “When were you last there?” I told her it was back in 1987. She returned from a few weeks stay in London and reported to me that it was busy, dirty, etc… all the usual things people say upon returning someplace. I firmly believe that we should not ever return to a place, especially if we like it, because the present moment(s) will never live up to the past memories. :-))
Just over a year ago my wife and I returned to her home in China for a family visit. We’ve visited many times before and always had a great time. This time was fraught with all sorts of problems. We didn’t enjoy it.
And I could add to your story about LA, and San Francisco, where I have lived for a short time… years ago… about great days and exciting memories, only to have them dashed against the rocks on return visits.
I can only reiterate my feelings about this… to go back, to return is to visit for the first time… it’s like we hit the ‘RESET BUTTON’… because each time is so dependent on our current state of consciousness at that time, and the attendant conditions arising and departing. Of course now, as a long-time student and practitioner of Buddhist Dharma Zen philosophies, I can more clearly see that each moment is just that… a tiny moment attached to a breath. We breath in… this is a moment… we breath out, that is another… and so on. I know that you know exactly what I mean, so don’t need to bore you with the sermon. :-)).
But I am more aware of ‘moments’ now as they rise and fall, come and go… than I was twenty years ago. Does that knowledge make it easier to navigate the obstacles of life (and travel)? Well yes, I believe so. Because even if I am disappointed with a meet up of old friends, or re-visiting a town or city I’ve held in my heart for so long… and it is ‘not the same’ for me, I know that it is me that may have changed, or it’s just a shitty day… the weather is crap, or the people are in a bad mood, or I am not at my best… whatever, it’s just a moment. Conditions rising and falling away. Moment to moment. Everything is in flux, constantly. It maybe (and quite often is, for me) the people I am with at that moment. Other people’s agendas, moods, needs, or lack of interest, etc… all have a direct influence on me and MY MOMENTS…and now I am aware of that, I can remove myself from the picture - practice non-attachment and mindful present-moment-awareness, and just enjoy the ‘new moment’ for what it is, and leave it at that. I now know that if I return on another day, soon or in the future… I may have a better experience… HOWEVER, I will NEVER repeat the memory… can’t replay it, because it doesn’t actually exist.
Loved reading your piece brother. It stimulated a thought process in me and helped me to clarify how I deal with the same ‘story’. It’s great to re-connect with you and be able to converse with an intelligent real human being… a deep thinker. I often think about you and wonder if you are still living in NZ, and I am always grateful that our paths crossed many years ago when I first started uploading my music albums to CB Baby… and, although my relationship with them is not the same… (I seem to always have to have ‘conversations’ with AI Bots instead of a team member… in so many businesses now… and I hate it)… I am very grateful that I started when you were the Founding CEO and you actually email-replied to little guys like me. And that my friend is the ONE thing that has not changed. We are still talking. Blessings to you.
And I am very grateful for your friendship.
Take care Derek.
Hugs,
Pete Morley
ZEN MUSIC
www.zenmusic.biz

PS - this week I have just uploaded my latest smooth avant jazz album, “Not Famous - Just Peter Morley” and I am about to finish another one… album #52. Thanks so much for your assistance over the years. You are still an important element in my evolution as an independent artist. 🙏🏼🌹😎🎸
Australia

My dear friend… hi mate,
So great to hear from you and to read your piece.
It brought up so many things for me… but especially a big YES! Because I have had all those experiences myself, and heard them from others.
Last year, a friend of mine who is from the UK and now lives (as you do) in New Zealand, returned to visit her father just out of London. I said, “Oh how wonderful, I love London”. She asked, “When were you last there?” I told her it was back in 1987. She returned from a few weeks stay in London and reported to me that it was busy, dirty, etc… all the usual things people say upon returning someplace. I firmly believe that we should not ever return to a place, especially if we like it, because the present moment(s) will never live up to the past memories. :-))
Just over a year ago my wife and I returned to her home in China for a family visit. We’ve visited many times before and always had a great time. This time was fraught with all sorts of problems. We didn’t enjoy it.
And I could add to your story about LA, and San Francisco, where I have lived for a short time… years ago… about great days and exciting memories, only to have them dashed against the rocks on return visits.
I can only reiterate my feelings about this… to go back, to return is to visit for the first time… it’s like we hit the ‘RESET BUTTON’… because each time is so dependent on our current state of consciousness at that time, and the attendant conditions arising and departing. Of course now, as a long-time student and practitioner of Buddhist Dharma Zen philosophies, I can more clearly see that each moment is just that… a tiny moment attached to a breath. We breath in… this is a moment… we breath out, that is another… and so on. I know that you know exactly what I mean, so don’t need to bore you with the sermon. :-)).
But I am more aware of ‘moments’ now as they rise and fall, come and go… than I was twenty years ago. Does that knowledge make it easier to navigate the obstacles of life (and travel)? Well yes, I believe so. Because even if I am disappointed with a meet up of old friends, or re-visiting a town or city I’ve held in my heart for so long… and it is ‘not the same’ for me, I know that it is me that may have changed, or it’s just a shitty day… the weather is crap, or the people are in a bad mood, or I am not at my best… whatever, it’s just a moment. Conditions rising and falling away. Moment to moment. Everything is in flux, constantly. It maybe (and quite often is, for me) the people I am with at that moment. Other people’s agendas, moods, needs, or lack of interest, etc… all have a direct influence on me and MY MOMENTS…and now I am aware of that, I can remove myself from the picture - practice non-attachment and mindful present-moment-awareness, and just enjoy the ‘new moment’ for what it is, and leave it at that. I now know that if I return on another day, soon or in the future… I may have a better experience… HOWEVER, I will NEVER repeat the memory… can’t replay it, because it doesn’t actually exist.
Loved reading your piece brother. It stimulated a thought process in me and helped me to clarify how I deal with the same ‘story’. It’s great to re-connect with you and be able to converse with an intelligent real human being… a deep thinker. I often think about you and wonder if you are still living in NZ, and I am always grateful that our paths crossed many years ago when I first started uploading my music albums to CB Baby… and, although my relationship with them is not the same… (I seem to always have to have ‘conversations’ with AI Bots instead of a team member… in so many businesses now… and I hate it)… I am very grateful that I started when you were the Founding CEO and you actually email-replied to little guys like me. And that my friend is the ONE thing that has not changed. We are still talking. Blessings to you.
And I am very grateful for your friendship.
Take care Derek.
Hugs,
Pete Morley
ZEN MUSIC
www.zenmusic.biz

PS - this week I have just uploaded my latest smooth avant jazz album, “Not Famous - Just Peter Morley” and I am about to finish another one… album #52. Thanks so much for your assistance over the years. You are still an important element in my evolution as an independent artist. 🙏🏼🌹😎🎸
Australia

I always love your perspective, Derek. It shakes me from my cognitive Kansas. You're so right. Time is a critical factor is our experiences, and also in our perceptions of those experiences. And now, in the new world of AI, our perceptions, which have largely been based upon a healthy dose of reality, will increasingly be based upon something entirely different.

Derek, the whole world has changed in some way. Technology being the driver of wide change. That in turn made the world smaller. I can't speak for people in other countries, but we the people of America have relaxed and taken our eyes off of what made America... America. First and foremost, we have left God out of our lives which this country was founded upon. Families have left the teaching and learning of our young folks to the schools to take care of. My mother read a bible verse to me everyday and explained it to me each time. When both parents had to go work to make ends meet, to have anything, America lost the teaching of the home. America is the same, "we're" not. If we could put away our cells a day or two each week and just "see" each other again, go back to America's foundational values, the America we knew would come flooding back. I could go on, but I will leave with this... There's a coffee shop down the road and I swear a criminal could rob the place and no one would see anything. They're all sitting around on their cellphones playing games or trolling the internet. Bingo.

So very true. And we have no idea what the future will really be like for any place! For instance the advance of ai! Who would have imagined what’s happening now say 5 years ago! Life imitates art and vice versa it seems!

I agree-
Places, people, values and philosophies change daily let alone after decades pass. There also seems to be a cycle of change while older generations yearn for past times and ways.
ps Los Angeles is still awesome. Just a few hiccups-

Derek... You're mostly right ! I just had my 81st birthday so have been through many iterations of this "experiment" ! The halcyon 1950s, the vibrant and turbulent 60s, the evolving 70s, the retro-ish 80s, the world wide web 90s, the fall-of-the-dream 2000s, the beginnings of the "far right" madness and the "damn, we didn't learn anything from the 10s, and now it seems like we're "beyond f _ _ ked" in the 2os ! Is there hope that we'll make it through this ignorant "cluster f" ? Hard to tell, but I wouldn't want to bet on it or debate it with anyone ! So, the: "there's nothing as constant as change" mantra becomes the dominant zeitgeist, I guess ? : (

I love how you always make me think, Derek, and this one has me going deeper. I think every memory is a snapshot taken by a specific version of you, shaped by what you believed and felt at the time. So it's not just that places change. We're never really remembering what happened. We're remembering our experience of it, filtered through a self that's already moved on.

And over the last few years I've learned a lot about how memory actually works, and it makes this even more interesting. Our brains actually build our memories on the fly when we need them as kind of a simulation, and who we are right now bleeds into that reconstruction. So the memory keeps shifting with us. The place changes. We change. And then our memory of both changes, too.

It all lends to your point about how many things in the world are actually true or not.

I think about this almost every day. I'm nostalgic for mid-2000s NYC. Even though I visit frequently, that time and place is so deeply ingrained in me that I rarely experience NYC the way it is today - I only see it with old eyes. But then my friends and family who live there daily bring me back to reality and tell me NYC is no longer the way I describe. Both can be right in a weird kind of way, I guess.