A place to call home

Friend 1: dont you ever miss home?

Bruno: i don't know, define home.

Friend 1: well the place you grew up, or or where your parents are

Bruno: but the place i grew up or where my parents are never really felt like home, so why should i call it home?

Friend 1: well because, that's what most people call home.

Bruno: but that would be living in the past, and I have the theory that the past doesnt really exist, its fake, just an illusion we create with our imagination and it exists only in our minds, same as the future.
there's just here and now, so home is this place I'm staying at now, why would I miss it if I'm already here?

Friend 1: but most people feel like they need to belong somewhere and have somewhere to come back to, don't you feel like that sometimes?

Bruno: that doesn't make much sense, why would i want to belong somewhere if i can belong everywhere instead.

Friend 1: If you belong everywhere, the place you grew up wont feel special anymore.

Bruno: true, but you can make every place feel special, it's up to us what we consider special or not.

Friend 1: but most people need a place to call home.

Bruno: so, if most people eat horse dung, I should eat it as well, just because everyone else does?

Friend 1: well, yeah, that's why we usually do stuff, because everyone else does it, and that's how we've been doing it for centuries.

Bruno: i can understand that, customs, rituals, traditions, do we really need that?

Friend 1: yes

Bruno: what for?

Friend 1: to have a sense of identity, a sense of belonging to a place and to a culture.

Bruno: but the outcome of having a sense of  belonging to a place and a culture will be that you will not be allowed to see other people who belong to different cultures than yours as equals to you.
countries, religions, ethnicities, social status and possitions will only prevent you from seeing that actually we are all the same everywhere.
and will make you justify acts of violence agains people of the "different culture" such as terrorism, explitation, racism, just because they are "different"

Friend 1: ok, i see where you're getting at, is this another government conspiracy to keep us on a tight leash and justify whatever acts of violence they decide to engage on?

Bruno: not really, before we made up the nation states, like 200 years ago, we always swore loyalty to some king, god or emperor. basically any excuse we can come up with to kill one another and take over our land and resources, because we didn't knwo anything better, now we do.

Friend 1: yes, what is that? some utopian future where we all love each other and are kind to each other?

Bruno: yes

Friend 1: cool