Perhaps all living creatures have a certain degree of curiosity – those at the top of the scale of the evolutionary development being more curious than those at the very bottom. Curiosity is not the primordial need but rather something that comes after the first and foremost needs have been satisfied. If this assertion is true, then man is no doubt by far the most curious of all living creatures.

Many famous thinkers and people of science and learning have tried to express in a laconic, formula-like manner what is the most typical and the most striking trait of human beings. Thus expressions like homo erectus, homo sapiens, homo faber, homo ludens and so on were coined.

One such term is also homo quaerens, the seeking man. Indeed, human beings have been seeking since they became aware of themselves, which means since they became conscious creatures. Being conscious is being aware of one’s own existence, sensations and thoughts. Human curiosity has as many shades as there are things that can be done. All of them have given birth to as numerous sciences, arts and crafts.

The latter have in return made our life richer and more comfortable, however, unevenly pronounced; in some parts of the world sciences and the knowledge acquired through them have virtually created miracles and granted unheard-of opportunities to the vast majority of people while in some other parts of the world sciences, arts and knowledge are still lagging. That must have and has consequences.

The internet has changed everything: most people in the world can hear and see a lot about life in all parts of the world

As people are conscious and thus curious everywhere, all of them would like to have a more comfortable life and enjoy at least some benefits that the so-called developed world can offer. That is what causes migration. Today, the internet has changed everything: now most people in the world can hear and see a lot about life in all parts of the world. That has awakened the desire to go by all means there where life is more comfortable and where it is more fun to live.

That is a very simple explanation why so many people even risk their life, trying to reach legally or illegally the land, not some utopian promised one though, but one that really exists somewhere across real borders. That drive for a more pleasant existence is so incredibly strong that crowds of unarmed, poor people are in fact invading developed countries that have weapons, police and armies and all the means to defend their borders.

There are, of course, a tiny number of people who leave their official homeland and look for another one where they hope to enjoy their privacy, their anonymity and the state of not being disturbed either by politics or by religion but left alone.

It is that particular atmosphere of their preference that induces them to making some other country their home. Such people have found a positive way of becoming citizens of the countries of their choice by making a contribution to enhance the welfare of the country they have decided to live in.

The uncontrolled mass immigration may cause and causes great problems and a lot of tension because people who enter a foreign country that way in fact very rarely become completely loyal subjects. They even quite often feel being second-class citizens exploited and not duly respected by the country that has granted them the right to live there or citizenship.

On the other hand, those who are able to choose and who choose the country in which they want to have their future home never have such a feeling. They generously contribute to the wealth of the country in which they have decided to have their home in full awareness that their choice is appreciated. It is a fair deal made to mutual satisfaction.

All such people feel being citizens of the world and members of the nation called humankind. If freedom, correctness, tolerance, justice, welfare, public health, education possibilities, public transport and the institutions constituting the frame of society were of the same standard in all parts of the world, few people would try to live somewhere else.

That is, however, not the case. Considerable differences in standards of the above mentioned criteria induce people to look for a more pleasant life somewhere else. Thus the old Latin proverb ‘Ubi bene, ibi patria – where I feel good, there is my homeland’ still holds.

Christian Kälin is group chairman of Henley & Partners.