An unexpected result

A dear friend of mine facebooked this web site (http://www.playbuzz.com/larak10/what-country-in-the-world-best-fits-your-personality) As one could see from the link, this is a site that promises to tell you about the country that best fits your personality. I was so tempted to have an idea about this country that best fits my personality that I had no second thoughts and tried immediately.

My personality was defined bu this site in the following terms:

    "You are driven in life by the search for meaning and have a passion for culture and religion. You are a deeply spiritual person who thrives in an environment where people question their existence and devote themselves to a higher sense of being. You enjoy a stimulating environment and do best when you are challenged, mentally, and spiritually. You see life as an adventure and enjoy conversing with others on the big philosophical questions of life. Whether you are spending time in a bustling market, or meditating in a quiet garden, you are nourished by a society that is devoted to serving others.

If my personality scan did not really surpris me, the choice of India as a country did. I have always thought, and grown up to think, that this country is some sense of the word a very conventional kind of society. A country which is claimed to have , intellectually speaking, found all the answers to all the questions related to whatever might be challenging to Man, be it of a spiritual or an a mental nature. That's why and contrary to the trend of those responding to their country of choice by this "application" I am not going to INdia and I am staying where I think I belong. Actually, I have always felt that I belong here where I live nowand have always refused / turned down attempts at making me move to some other place.

Part of  me (or should I say , of my personality) is my country of birth. Don't ask me to rationalize this, I can't. I just have this very strong feeling that I belong here where I live. I have this impression that if I move elsewhere I will be a foreigner. And this is something that, I guess, nobody wants to experience for the rest of their life. You may, and I do, accept to be so for a short period of time. But, it really has to be short. Any country other than yours will alwys be a foreign country for you and even foreigners living there will / would consider you a foreigner or findind it starnge when you try to behave as a non-foreigner. An Armenian  I met in Los Angeles once told me that he found it uncceptable that we (Arabs of his acquintances) talk to each other even when we are from the same country, in English. He said that this is something Armeniains would never do according to him. What is interesting about this ancdote is that we have here a forigner (maybe a permanent resident alien in the US) who is voicing his concern that we are foreigners and we should stick to our foreigness. beign a foreigner can only be of the devil as this quote from Steinbeck East of Eden suggests: “...They said I looked like a foreign devil; they said I spoke like a foreign devil. I made mistakes in manners, and I didn't know delicacies that had grown up since my father left. They wouldn't have me. You can believe it or not - I'm less foreign here than I was in China.” 

― John Steinbeck, East of Eden