“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, “A Hat Full of Sky”
Settling down, becoming attached to a place where you leave is definitely efficient. When you know your town, for example you free up significant decision-making bandwidth by not having to decide on the bets route for getting from point A to point B, where to buy the best bread, and many other elements of the everyday logistics. In other words, you can put yourself on an autopilot and delegate processing of many daily situations to already-developed habits.
It can also be argued that the feeling of being settled, content with our environment is healthy from the psychological standpoint. However, there are drawbacks to becoming too comfortable. Relying exclusively on pre-existing habits day in and day out diminishes our present state awareness. If our environment never changes, there is little incentive to continually sharpen our skill of creating mental models. Changing our physical environment is an effective way to force ourselves to be more aware, more open-minded, more flexible and agile in forming our view of the world. When we travel, we train ourselves to become less dependent on having the life unfold exactly on our terms.
The concept of going away and coming back to the same place is much broader than just travelling in the literal sense. In photography, for example, it is useful to periodically shake things up by shooting different subjects, using different gear or post-processing techniques. If after trying the new workflow, style, business model, etc., you decide that it is not for you and you find yourself exactly at the starting point, this is an illusion. The point only appears the same. By coming back to it after taking a detour, you gain experience, skills and a broader view of the field of your work. And this makes you a different person, compared to those, who never left the comfort of their niche.
