Sunday, April 8, 2007

Alienation?

Showing friends the local culture and not just the obvious stuff like food, architecture, cities and art, but trying to uncover the unseen, the hidden values, meaning and traditions and the result of all this in visible behavior, I wonder what the other sees, through the eyes of his/her culture. Explaining, showing a culture entails speaking of religion & ethics; a hard thing to do even within a culture. Yet even subtler things are at play. “Oh, we’re just common folks, little people, we cannot change the world” said to a blogger who feels she just has try and shape for herself and others a subtler level of thought and action, means she could be seen as arrogant or as an important powerful person: “A daisy sticking her head out above the lawn, will have her head chopped off at the next mowing”, versus the encouragement to think and act independently as an individual, rules versus flexibility, religion versus the wave structure of matter (WSM)… Can my friends understand I just live in a different paradigm, can we dream the same dreams?
In exile in my home, I realize that the structure of my house, structures my activities and I wonder can I, past the warm welcome and good food, can I make my friends feel comfortable and not alienated?
Spooky pointed out she found ‘my street’: Dweersstraat, in English Contrary Street, a little street less traveled, not crowded but its own path to the centre of the urban universe.

2 comments:

  1. zonder 'dwarsliggers' rijdt er geen trein want dan zakt hij door de grond... (difficult to translate in English).

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  2. Home, home on the range. Ad astra per asper! One man, one vote.
    How can people in the heartland not have a different way. I think living in a place where you look at the clouds and wonder what if just makes you a little more of a maverick. All you can do for your friends is treat them the way you would want to be treated. My number one thing is freedom of religion not freedom from religion. I don't care what you believe, just don't ring my doorbell and try to convince me. MUD

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