Plato, if I am right, meant that the philosopher ultimately should settle down into the community; the person of greatness or of public rank needed, at the end of the day, to be common in order to have a home. When one spent time building a selfcongratulatory reputation, one set oneself off from the public–one holds oneself off from friends and companionship in the name of valor. Odysseus, one of the greatest heroic characters in antiquity also, at the end of the day, was one of the loneliest. Fate, of course, had much to do with this, but when given the chance in Plato’s world, the hero wanted companionship, community, a home. I was born in Philadelphia and it is my town of birth. But it was not my home as a home implies a haven, of which I found little. I went to school in Vermont, Boston, and Tucson. I never saw these places as my home–I was set-off from the population, in my own little bubble–these were transition points in my life. I am, beyond all belief, at home in the Deep South. Tuscaloosa is my home. I have friends who will no doubt move on. I have been to funerals and weddings here. I have made friends with people from all walks of life. There is no guarantee it will be my home forever, but I have family now–and I don’t just mean by marriage or blood. People, I think, treat home as a basic assumption a lot of times, an inherited right. It is not. You build it. A wind beats the shit out of it. Then you rebuild it.
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