For those of us who feel we don't quite fit where we live: uprootedness is not a lack, but the evolutionary draft of a humanity without fixed borders.
One night, gathered at a friend's house after a presidential election back when Chávez was still around, I got into a heated argument with a few people. Friends of the mayor in the city where I lived, they boasted about landing opaque contracts through their connections—even though they were fully aware of the country's reality. By then, Venezuela had already been showing the early signs of destruction under that regime for quite some time.
After that argument, I realized the country's problem wasn't a presidential candidate, but corruption, the lack of common sense, and ethics.
Sadly, that culture of opportunism and elitist classism suffocated me. By the time I decided to take a job opportunity abroad, Venezuela was already showing major signs of deterioration, though I thought at the time that my stay outside the country would be temporary.
Years later, things grew worse and that initial assumption became irrelevant. I never stopped voting in elections or participating in recall referendums and signature drives; I still thought it might be possible to change the country's fate.
From an inherited paradise to a land built on water
Today I live in the Netherlands, a very different country where the relationship between the land and its people is a feat of engineering—the exact opposite of Venezuela, where sadly, despite having extraordinary nature and noble people, resources are treated as a stroke of luck, destiny, or an endless gift managed negligently by a few at their whim.
Now Venezuela glimpses a shift, yet new variables enter the equation: shadowy figures with hidden agendas, backroom deals, and political fanaticism. For the moment, there is no real sign of substantive change, not even a true re-institutionalization of the country. This political polarization exhausts me, and after living in Europe, I feel far more aligned with its institutional models. Still, I will never be a native of Holland.
I imagine many migrants feel the same way: that strange emptiness or nostalgic ache for a homeland that no longer exists.
Uprootedness as biological evolution
I now see that feeling as pure biological evolution—just like animals that choose to move when their ecosystem turns hostile.
Migrating taught me to adapt quickly, expand my mind, and revise old beliefs when new information comes to light.
Those who have never left their home country tend to confuse their customs and traditions with universal laws. Those who have migrated see things with perspective.
This condition of being stateless in spirit is going to become a reality for many; one only has to look at the current challenges facing islands in the South Pacific as sea levels rise. Global warming is going to redraw the borders.
Those of us fleeing political crises, economic collapse, and wars will be joined by many more: the stateless, those persecuted for their religion or gender identity, mixed-race families, and households of every kind.
Rigid borders and concrete walls are becoming relics of the past, and humanity will remain on the move.
Floating cities: the elitist model vs. the citizen's vision
I follow and pay close attention to the heated debate online around floating cities—an idea generated largely in Silicon Valley and championed by figures like Peter Thiel.
I started reading and researching, and I realized we start from the same premise—that traditional nation-states are becoming obsolete—but they view it through a corporate, elitist lens, seeking fewer regulations and better tax conditions. They envision these cities as private companies.
In their version, only those who have—or will have—power and capital get to participate. It is worth pausing to emphasize that this same circle of tech bros holds troubling ideas about demographic engineering and population control, reminiscent of the atrocious experiments of Communist Romania and the one-child policy.
From my perspective, as a real-life protagonist of this story and far closer to the everyday citizen, I see it through a completely opposite lens.
Freedom without borders, without bureaucracy, and far from autocracies
Not as an offshore island built to dodge taxes, but as an open territory with logical, modern laws suited to the reality of our world—yet safeguarding the fundamental rights we have fought so hard to protect, encouraging the participation of everyone who lives there, and where a resident's destiny is determined not by a passport, a university degree, race, religion, or gender, but by the ability to solve problems, create value, and live in peace.
Clearly free, green, more horizontal or tribal, sustained by responsibility, respect, tolerance, and education.
Necessary technology, yes, but strictly at the service of everyone and for generating collective well-being—such as the optimal management of resources—never for private agendas or tools of control.
In this ideal place, autocracies, endless regimes, political messianism, cults of personality, manipulation, dogmatism, bureaucracy, and corruption are left behind.
To anyone who feels they don't quite fit where they are living, I want to say that we are an evolutionary reflection—and we might just be the first draft of how to inhabit a planet without fixed borders.
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