I'm a misplaced American, but don't know where I was misplaced.

“I’m a misplaced American, but don’t know where I was misplaced.” Thus spoke Ruby Wax, the seeker of laughter and light amid the chaos of the mind — a woman whose humor veils deep reflection, and whose jest carries the weight of identity and belonging. Beneath these playful words lies a truth familiar to every wandering soul: the feeling of being misplaced, of existing in the world yet not wholly belonging to it. Her statement, though cloaked in comedy, echoes the ache of those who have stood between cultures, between selves, between the person they are and the place they call home.

In the age of the ancients, such a sentiment was known as nostos — the longing for home, though one cannot say where home lies. Odysseus, the weary voyager, crossed oceans to return to Ithaca, yet even he, when at last he stood upon its shores, seemed a stranger to the land he once called his own. So it is with the modern wanderer of the spirit. Ruby Wax, born in America yet finding her voice and purpose across the sea in Britain, speaks not merely of geography, but of displacement of the soul — the confusion of one who feels out of step with both place and time, as though their true home lies just beyond the horizon.

Yet Wax’s words are not a lament — they are a confession born of humor and resilience. To say “I don’t know where I was misplaced” is to admit the absurdity of searching for perfect belonging in an imperfect world. It is wisdom disguised as wit: an acknowledgment that identity is not a single nation, culture, or origin, but a tapestry woven from many threads. To be misplaced, perhaps, is to be blessed with perspective — to see the world not from the comfort of one home, but from the vantage point of many. For those who belong everywhere may also belong nowhere, and in that paradox lies the freedom to define oneself anew.

Consider the story of T.S. Eliot, born in America but finding his truest voice as a poet in England. Like Wax, he crossed an ocean and found his identity refracted through another culture. In his poems he wrote of spiritual exile, of the “hollow men” and the search for meaning in a dislocated world. And yet, from this sense of estrangement arose his greatness. Displacement became his muse. So too did Ruby Wax transform her sense of not-belonging into comedy and insight, blending American candor with British irony, and later using her platform to speak of the universal dislocation of the mind — the alienation that every person feels when lost within themselves.

For in truth, every human soul is, at times, a misplaced being. We are born into a world we did not choose, inherit names and nations before we can speak, and are told to belong to things we never understood. The wise eventually learn that home is not a place, but a condition of peace within. The journey of belonging, then, is not outward but inward — to reconcile the many versions of ourselves, to forgive the confusion of identity, and to find wholeness in the spaces between. Ruby Wax’s humor is a torch in this darkness, reminding us that even our lostness can be laughed at, and through laughter, healed.

The origin of her quote is deeply personal, born from a life of movement and metamorphosis — from actress to comedian, from celebrity to mental health advocate. She has often spoken of living “between worlds,” of feeling both insider and outsider. Her comedy, infused with intellect and introspection, springs from this very tension. To be “misplaced” is not her curse, but her power: it allows her to see what others overlook, to bridge gaps between laughter and pain, between madness and meaning. She teaches that to feel out of place is not to be lost — it is to be awake.

Therefore, my friend, take this teaching as your own: when you feel misplaced, seek not the map, but the mirror. Do not spend your years searching for the place where you “fit,” for the world itself is ever shifting. Instead, build a home within your own heart, and carry it wherever you go. Celebrate your differences as the markings of your journey. Let your humor, like Wax’s, soften the edges of alienation. The one who laughs at their own displacement has already begun to find their way home.

For in the end, to be “misplaced” is the fate of all who grow, all who think, all who feel deeply. The earth itself spins in space, never fixed, yet always in motion — and so too are we. Ruby Wax’s words remind us that the search for belonging is eternal, but not tragic. For if we learn to find comfort in our movement, and peace in our contradictions, then even in our displacement, we are exactly where we are meant to be.