.. i don´t know. Mabye it´s the same in every town of small proportions.
Last time i moved south, it was because i got a high position management job in a large public Internet company and i was so bored to death with the envorinment around me that i just jumped on the first plane end left.
This time the longing for something bigger comes out of the conclusion that there is nothing more to discover at home really.
I know i won´t move anywhere soon this time since i have my daughter here, but…hell…when i spend most of my days working over the Internet with Russians (in my computergame business) Englishmen (same) and Americans (promoting albums for the recordcompany) everything regarding small town issues and culture is starting to feel so…well…”dull” really, when i hear my foreign collegues go on about their everyday life in big distant cities.
The local papers in my town are full of micro-issues repeating itself in a very predictable way. Writing about the same subjects over and over and over and over. The local politics are all about the usual small town corruption and protectionism, since everybody is sitting in someone elses knee, defending positions. It´s hard to keep motivated really, experiencing this. It´s hard to respect it, having a completly different opinion on how things should be done.
It´s not like there´s even a power-trip to be found in running a county with less than 60 000 people, governed by people in political stagnation and locked positions. It´s just to god damn bloodless to tickle my lust and creativity. What would the satisfaction or motivator be in it? Getting a bridge built? Getting a name of a street changed? Oh, please.
I´ve done all the kinds of trips one can do in this region already. On every level, with every company or county/ govermental function. In the late nineties i was selling advertising-services to them from the Advertising bureau i owned. Then i was an organisation consultant for a lot of local companies for a couple of years. Then i ran a Theatre/conference facility for another couple of years. I have also been into politics for a few years, finding it to be a dead end street.
The thing is; it´s the same small group of people to deal with over and over again no matter from what angle or business you´re working from! LOL You understand? 😀
Not that there´s anything wrong with those people really, they are pretty friendly and go about their lives as everybody else, mostly settling with the small portions of life they´re handed, but there is definitly a lack of broader understanding, ambition and vision among some of them and that frustrates me.
Anyway; -Now i run a computergame-business and a record company. Mostly, i think, just because i want to find out what it´s like really. It´s ok for now.
But…where to go from here? Where can i challenge and benchmark all the extreme knowledge and experience i´ve gathered over two decades? Is this it?
-Maybe the answer lies in expanding into more Internet-based relations, as we are beginning to do this period. Maybe that will keep things feeling fresh and motivating. Maybe.
God bless the Internet, that lets me bend the borders a little, working with talent from all over the world. But i have a longing after beeing able to change environment for a while. Mabye a vacation or a trip to a foreign country for a few weeks would be enough. I don´t know. It´s just a restless feeling.
I really love my hometown, and i have a lot of meaningful relations and businesscontacts in it… but some days… it´s just not enough, when my eyes stray to the horizon, knowing what´s there.
Well… my daughter has been away for a week. I bet these feelings will fade away when she returns, helping me keep my mind off things. I´ll be content when she´s back. For shure. I hope.
/Stefan
