At Home Yet Out of Place

I am retiring after forty-two years in the same department at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje. A lifetime spent in one environment, yet never quite belonging. As I trace the arc of those decades, the phrase that rises again and again is “out of place”. I came to understand it fully only after reading Edward Said’s memoir—an encounter that stirred something deep within me. It named what I had long felt, but never dared to say.

How did I remain so long in a space that regarded me as a stranger—some kind of “wild tissue”—while I, in return, also never felt it as home? The answer lies not in comfort, but in defiance. In quiet endurance. And, above all, in the unexpected joy that teaching and writing brought me. Being a professor gave shape to my days and light to my spirit. It filled me, even as the walls around me remained alien.

What made that possible? Only the crossing of borders—intellectual, emotional, and invisible. I began to drift toward another orbit: the world of international academia. It didn’t happen all at once. I stepped in tentatively, uncertain, afraid, convinced I was not good enough. I came from a small country no one could find on a map, unless I said “Yugoslavia.” My English was halting, clumsy. It embarrassed me. But it also sharpened me—forced me to gather every thread of thought and weave it into meaning.

And so, the journey began. Quite unexpectedly, actually… From one awkward email to the next. From one paper read aloud with trembling voice, to a conference hall filled with strangers who would become fellow travelers. I discovered a world wide and wild with thought. A world full of brilliance, generosity, and warm solidarity. Of course, there were also opportunists and mediocrities, like anywhere. But I learned to seek out the luminous ones—and to learn from them.

Each return home made the contrast more jarring. The silence, the stiffness, the subtle suspicion. I was no longer one of “them”—perhaps I never had been. The gap between us widened. My presence became unsettling. I no longer fit the mold. I disturbed the order, asked the wrong questions, moved to a different rhythm. There were moments when I could have left. I even did, once—spent a year in Geneva, breathing easier. But I came back, convinced that I owed something to this place. To its young people. To the future, still unwritten.

Perhaps that was a mistake. Perhaps not. It hardly matters now.

Now, standing on the edge of retirement, I can say it openly: I was always out of place here. Misaligned. Restless. Sometimes lonely, often tired. And yet—filled with a love for the work that never left me. If I’m granted a few more years, I hope they will be years of creation. Of freedom. Of breathing without fear that my words might disturb some local “academic Salieri.”

Let the department mark its 50th year in pride. I’ve given it 42. That is enough.

Now it is time to walk another path. To see more of the world—before it collapses in on itself.

Because in this crazy world, those who still think and feel deeply for the fellow human beings will always be out of place. And out of mind …