How I realized Phitsanulok is home

In The Republic, Socrates introduces an extended metaphor for the city as a human soul. He presents the soul as having three components: eros, thumos, and logos, or, quite roughly, desires/love, spiritedness, and intellect. Thumos corresponds to the warrior class of the city, defending the things we love (including, of course, ourselves). Thumos is our vanity, our pride, our expectations, and even our anger at ourselves for not meeting expectations.

Most relevantly for this post, it's the part of ourselves that irrationally attaches us to things that are our own. As in, of course I liked my high school football team and went to every game even though our record in the four years I attended school must have been about 10-38. Our sports teams, our homes, even our family members: thumos is the part of ourselves that bonds us to those things that, objectively viewed, might not be all that great. Think Cubs fans, the way you like your mom's weird macaroni and cheese, the bizarre dent on your car you strangely take pleasure in. These things are ours, and just that is enough to make them valuable to us.

Last week, I hosted a 23 year-old Italian couch surfer on the floor of my one-room apartment. He was plenty amiable, at the mid-point of a two year journey (by land and boat only; no flights!) from Italy to Australia. He stayed here for a couple of days, taking in the sights and relaxing before hitching-hiking on to the next big town on the highway. I showed him the best P'lok has to offer: the big temple, the night bazaar, the best pad thai in town, the best juice stand, the market, my friends, even aerobics in the park. When he was packing up, I asked him what he thought of the place. He said, "it could be worse," as if this was the most natural observation about the place.

I was a little stunned. Hadn't I shown him the wonderful parts of town? The little secrets it took me months to accumulate? Had he been paying any attention? And that's when I remembered what I'd been struck by when I first got here: the anonymous melange of three-story high dingy store fronts that stretch for blocks and blocks, the unattractive amount of trash, the vague feeling of a town that doesn't matter but wishes it did. The Scranton of Thailand, maybe?

Then I realized, it had happened. Phitsanulok had become a part of me. I'd subsumed it under my umbrella of things that are my own and that thus I love. And so, couch surfers be damned, I am defending this place until the temple bells stop ringing and the giant rooster statue on the highway crumbles down. All I need now is someone at the Phitsanulok tourist office to please, please find me and hire me to write brochures.

Yours,
Rebecca