Epinomy - I'm No Einstein: On Exodus and Disillusionment

A century ago, Albert Einstein sat at his desk in Berlin, already sensing what many of his colleagues refused to see. The political air had shifted. The unthinkable had become merely improbable, then plausible, then imminent. By 1932, he'd packed his violin, his notebooks, and little else. He never returned to Germany.

I'm no Einstein. Not in intellect, not in contribution to humanity, not in historical significance. But as I arrange my life into containers bound for Portugal, I recognize a ghostly parallel in our departures – not in magnitude, but in the familiar pattern of watching one's homeland become unrecognizable.

The Slow Erosion of Disbelief

For three decades, I've worked in information systems, building tools to enhance access to knowledge, improving search algorithms, implementing enterprise systems for Fortune 500 companies. The software industry operates on logic, on cause and effect, on rational responses to identifiable problems. Perhaps this professional immersion in rationality left me vulnerable to what happened next.

I didn't see it coming.

Or rather, I saw it coming but refused to believe it. The warning signs accumulated like compiler errors – too numerous and severe to ignore, yet somehow I kept trying to debug rather than recognize the fundamental architecture was irreparable.

The summer of 2024 functioned as my event horizon – the point beyond which retreat became impossible. A presidential election transformed from democratic process into a nationwide exercise in collective delusion. The candidate himself appeared almost from central casting – if one were casting for a B-movie about authoritarianism. His rhetoric wasn't subtle. His intentions weren't disguised. Yet millions cheered.

I watched as neighbors placed signs in their yards supporting policies that would strip protections from those who needed them most. People with whom I'd shared neighborhood barbecues now loudly celebrated the dismantling of institutions I believed essential to functioning democracy.

What makes this particularly wrenching is my deep connection to this place. According to Ancestry.com, I don't have a single ancestor on either side who immigrated after 1776. I'm about as "native American" as one can be without being an actual Indigenous person. My roots in this soil run deep – deeper than the political movements currently reshaping it. The Tampa Bay area has been my home my entire life, an island existence near a mid-sized American city, educated in Catholic schools and at the University of South Florida.

Despite having traveled to South Africa, Berlin, Monaco, London, Sydney, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Ottawa, Marbella, and at least 40 states, I always returned to these familiar waters, this familiar climate, these familiar people. Until now.

The Unbearable Weight of Familiarity

The most disturbing aspect wasn't the man at the podium but the crowd before him. These weren't strangers from distant states whose values I could dismiss as foreign to my experience. These were people whose children played with mine, whose technical questions I'd answered, whose hands I'd shaken.

"I look more like the fascist ignoramuses than Einstein did," I sometimes think, studying my reflection – a white male face, the demographic most responsible for our political careening. I'd always considered myself separate from that demographic's worst impulses, but proximity creates complicity unless actively rejected.

A Russian colleague – now happily relocated to Barcelona – once faced my persistent questions about Putin's rise. "How could it happen?" I'd asked, genuinely baffled. He'd answer vaguely, hesitant to speak the simple truth that seemed impolite: some portion of every population is susceptible to authoritarian appeal. The percentage seems remarkably consistent – around 30% who respond eagerly to strong-man politics, fear-based rhetoric, and simple solutions to complex problems.

I no longer ask him how it happened. Now I know.

The Iron Curtain Within

As a child during the Cold War, I wondered how citizens behind the Iron Curtain tolerated their circumstances. Didn't they yearn for freedom? Couldn't they see the propaganda for what it was?

The answers arrive decades later, bitter with irony. Those citizens weren't fundamentally different from us. They were ordinary humans navigating systems that evolved gradually, making daily compromises that accumulated into acquiescence. By the time many recognized the transformation, adaptation seemed easier than resistance.

I've watched former colleagues – educated, successful professionals – drift into information ecosystems that reward outrage and punish nuance. Their social media feeds deliver carefully curated realities where complex problems reduce to villains and heroes. They aren't experiencing technical difficulties; they've simply changed channels.

This realization carries its own peculiar terror. The most effective iron curtains aren't constructed of concrete and barbed wire but woven from narrative threads that run through minds and hearts, separating citizens more effectively than any physical barrier.

Immigrant, Not Expat

I type these words from an Airbnb in Tavira, Portugal. The Algarve region was only vaguely familiar to me a year ago, though I had visited nearby Marbella in 2003 with my sister Meg. She was 17 then, I was in my thirties – the two-decade age gap meant we were only getting to know each other as adults during that trip. It became one of the happiest periods in both our lives, captured in journal pages she kept, which we later displayed in the video memorial at her funeral in 2019.

The memory feels eerily circular now. That post-9/11 journey occurred because my then-wife declined to accompany me on a trip earned through work, so I invited Meg instead. Now I find myself exploring these nearby Portuguese streets, planning a more permanent migration, with the shadow of another national trauma propelling my journey.

I can't help but think of Meg when I walk these cobblestone streets. She died of myocarditis – treatable, had she sought care. But fear of a financially devastating medical bill kept her from the hospital. My sister died because being poor in America often means choosing between financial ruin and necessary healthcare. The bitter irony of exploring a country with universal healthcare isn't lost on me.

My Portuguese lessons grow more intense each week. Despite my fluency in roughly 100 computer languages—from BASIC to Python, from FORTRAN to TypeScript—this marks my first serious attempt at acquiring a human language other than my native English. The contrast is illuminating. Programming languages follow rigid logical structures with clear rules and error messages. Portuguese, like all human languages, contains beautiful inconsistencies, historical accidents, and cultural nuances that no compiler could ever validate.

I've discovered a method called "comprehensible input," which, despite robust scientific evidence supporting its effectiveness, remains outside mainstream language education. The approach prioritizes understanding meaningful content over memorizing conjugation tables or vocabulary lists—a process more akin to how children naturally acquire language. It's curious how even in language acquisition, evidence-based approaches often lose to tradition and institutional momentum.

The distinction in approach matters because my goal itself differs from many Americans abroad. I'm preparing to be an immigrant, not an "expat." The latter term often serves as a comfortable euphemism that somehow elevates certain migrants above others, creating linguistic permission to remain culturally isolated. Computer languages may be designed for specific environments, but human languages evolved to connect people across differences. The goal isn't merely to function but to belong.

My departure involves remarkably few possessions. Unlike Einstein with his violin, or traditional emigrants with their carefully packed heirlooms, my transition will be largely digital. Three decades of professional achievement, community involvement, and personal connections distill to cloud storage and memories. There's something fitting about this lightness – perhaps the future of political migration in a digital age.

What remains feels weightless yet burdensome – memories of a country that prided itself on democratic resilience now embracing its opposites, knowledge that can't be unlearned about neighbors and relatives, the peculiar state of being politically homeless.

I harbor no illusions that Portugal represents paradise. All nations struggle with their demons, their corruptions, their tendency toward self-protection over justice. But degrees matter. The difference between 102° and 105° means little on a thermometer but everything to a patient with fever. I'm learning to convert these to Celsius now—another small adaptation in a much larger transformation. Like realizing that 39°C is concerning while 40.5°C requires immediate attention. Adapting to new metrics of normalcy, both political and practical.

Einstein found refuge in America, ironically the nation I now leave. Perhaps there's a cosmic symmetry in these migrations – a reminder that no nation maintains permanent status as either savior or villain. Countries, like people, contain multitudes and contradictions. They evolve, sometimes toward justice, sometimes away.

The language textbooks remain open on my desk. Learning Portuguese isn't merely practical; it represents a commitment to integration, to respecting the culture that will hopefully become home. The process of becoming an immigrant rather than simply fleeing an emigrant requires this humility – the willingness to become, in some ways, a beginner again.

I'm no Einstein. But perhaps one doesn't need to be to recognize when it's time to leave one place and begin anew in another.