You’ve probably felt it. That quiet unease when you’re on a Zoom call and you can’t remember which city you’re actually sitting in. The coffee shop in Chiang Mai looks exactly like the one in Lisbon. The Slack channel feels more real than the street outside your window. Something is slipping away.
We’ve been told that remote work means freedom. Work from anywhere, they said. The world is your office. But here’s the truth no one wants to admit: The more connected we become, the more unmoored we feel. The concept of ‘there’ is collapsing into a universal ‘here’ – and that collapse is quietly eroding our sense of identity.
I remember meeting a friend in Bali last year. She’d been ‘living remotely’ for three years, bouncing between co-living spaces. She could tell me about the wifi speed in Medellin vs. Lisbon, but when I asked what her ‘home’ was, she paused. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I guess wherever my laptop is.’ That’s not freedom. That’s a slow erosion of belonging.
The core insight from research on viral content applies directly here: Neutrality is death. Pick a side. So I’ll pick mine: The narrative that remote work liberates you from place is a dangerous oversimplification. It’s not liberating – it’s disorienting. When every location becomes a temporary node in a network, ‘here’ becomes a meaningless signifier. You’re everywhere, so you’re nowhere.
Think about the last time you felt truly grounded. Maybe it was a childhood home, a favorite park, a bar where everyone knew your name. Those places had weight. They had stories. They gave you a sense of who you were because they were distinct. We thought we were escaping the limitations of geography. Instead, we escaped the comfort of belonging.
The tension is real: we strive for global connectivity and location-transcending tools, yet we simultaneously crave the anchoring sense of a unique ‘there.’ Look at the rise of ‘third places’ – coffee shops, coworking spaces, libraries. People are desperately trying to recreate the distinctiveness that digital life erased. But a coworking space in Berlin feels identical to one in Tokyo. The brands, the furniture, the playlist – all globalized into a bland uniformity.
This isn’t just about travel or nomadism. It’s about anyone who spends most of their day in front of a screen. If your work, your social life, your entertainment all happen in a digital space that has no geography, then your physical location becomes irrelevant. And when location becomes irrelevant, so does the sense of ‘here.’ We are building a world where we are always present, but never truly there.
The twist is this: The very technology that promised to connect us across distances is making distance meaningless. But meaning itself is born from distance – from the difference between here and there. Without that difference, we lose a fundamental anchor for our identity. The most successful remote workers I know don’t move every month. They pick a place, commit to it, and build a life around it. They understand that freedom isn’t about being able to go anywhere – it’s about choosing a ‘there’ and making it matter.
So the next time you feel that quiet unease, don’t brush it off. It’s your brain telling you that you need a place that is uniquely yours. Stop trying to be everywhere. Find your there. Or risk being nowhere at all.
FAQ
Q: Isn't remote work just a tool? Can't I choose to have a 'there' even if I work remotely?
A: Yes, you can. But the default behavior of the remote work ecosystem—co-working spaces, digital nomad visas, global collaboration tools—actively pushes you toward placelessness. You have to consciously fight to create and maintain a distinct sense of place. Most people don't, and that's the problem.
Q: What's the practical implication for someone who works remotely?
A: Commit to a physical location for at least six months. Build routines around local places. Refuse to travel for work unless there's a genuine in-person reason. Your sense of belonging isn't a luxury—it's a psychological necessity. Treat it as part of your job.
Q: But isn't it great to have the choice to go anywhere? You're just romanticizing the past.
A: Choice without consequence isn't freedom—it's paralysis. The ability to go anywhere often leads to going nowhere meaningful. The contrarian truth: constraints produce identity. Choosing one place and accepting its limitations gives you a stronger sense of self than infinite mobility ever could.