What Do You Call Home?

More From This Episode Identities

Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode Identities.

About Pico Iyer's TEDTalk

Country and culture used to serve as the cornerstones of identity, but what does "home" mean to someone who comes from many places? Writer Pico Iyer talks about the meaning of home in a world where the old boundaries of nation-states no longer apply.

About Pico Iyer

Acclaimed writer Pico Iyer began his career documenting a neglected aspect of travel — the disconnect between local tradition and imported global pop culture.

It's only by stepping out of your life and the world, that you can see what you most deeply care about and find a home.

Since then, he has written a dozen books including topics such as the cultural consequences of isolation, whether writing about the exiled spiritual leaders of Tibet or the embargoed society of Cuba.

Iyer's latest focus is on how travel can help us regain our sense of stillness and focus in a world where our devices and digital networks increasing distract us?

He says "Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information ... Nearly everybody I know does something to try to remove herself to clear her head and to have enough time and space to think. ... All of us instinctively feel that something inside us is crying out for more spaciousness and stillness."