I have a couple of friends who travel full-time. These "digital nomads", as they're called, have built lifestyles where they travel full-time, working remotely from their laptops.

I understand wanting to leave the United States.

For one, there's a lot beyond our borders. Monuments, other places and cultures, other cuisines. Travel is a great teacher.

Whereas back home, it's nothing but high taxes and a bozo president who wants to put up walls and shut it all down. Unfunded pensions, 30-40% marginal tax rates, and $800/month property tax bills for decrepit schools and potholed roads.

I get it. So why stick it out?

Life today is good. You can hail car service from your phone, book hotels by the hour, get food delivered at 2AM. You can watch any movie any time of day without leaving your house, and talk to anyone in the world for almost nothing.

There's a darker side to this convenience, and that is that you become conditioned to see everything as some sort of convenient, on-demand consumption purchase to be had on your terms, whenever you want, only to be thrown away or put down when you've had enough. Just swipe left.

That's a fine way to treat soda straws and minibar bottles. It doesn't work so well with marriages, communities, or cities. These things have to be built and that takes time.

It's great to consume other cultures in small doses. But like many of life's pleasures, the real satisfaction isn't from nonstop consumption, it's from building something enduring with a community. For some that's a sports team, others a family, still others, a business. Peoples' ambitions are different. But the desire is universal.

Other cultures aren't my consumption item. That's why I'm not a digital nomad.