The Mountains

Currently I am living in mountains and I was not born in mountains even though I have lived more than a few places with mountains and love them!

Now I look at these lovely mountains. I watch the changes that come over them daily, The play of light through the mist in the morning and again in the evening. I think often of China, of how perspective is portrayed there and I understand.  

Most people I don' think really realize just how much programming goes on from the day you are born. Some people see that boys get the colour blue and girls get the colour pink, however there are so many very fundamental aspects of our very ability to perceive even distance that is engrained into us.

I have always said my definition of reality is:"The subjective opinion of the majority".  And I believe that.  Human interactions CREATE the reality we perceive and if we did not communicate, we did not share, I am not sure how this perception would come about, however it would.

We are taught almost from day one renaissance perspective.  We don't even know our little brains are being wired to it.  How?  Not even sure of this, but I understand it happens.

For instance, we see telephone poles going off into the distance.  We PERCEIVE each pole getting smaller as it recedes into the distance and this tells you the poles are farther and farther into the distance.  It is just what we are taught and how our brains are wired yet if we lived in a jungle or forest where everything is close, guess what would happen if we stood on the edge of a plane and looked at that same set of poles?  We would not clue in the distance at all!  That cue would mean nothing to use!  They would just look like difference size poles!  The brain of such people would not perceive it the same way!

Fascinating isn't it.  Just how we are based on where we live!  Just think if you could remember all your past lives, wouldn't that be mind numbing and confusing! You would have to be pretty special to handle that!  

I often have to remind myself the same is true of culture.  What is acceptable or proper etiquette in one country or place, is not the same in another!

I was raised a good deal of the time by my grandparents and so proper etiquette was important.  They had white middle class values likely more from a Victorian time coming from such an isolated area of Nova Scotia. Perhaps it is from them, or I was born with it, but I have a great sensibility and fixed ideas about certain things that I have had to identify so that I can fit in when I travel.

For instance, when I was teaching in Thailand, the young south African teachers I found the most rude people I have ever met in my entire life!
Such a sense of what I perceived as self importance and entitlement but which could have just been a cultural thing! All I know is if I was having a conversation, and this young woman decided she didn't want to listen to me any more (and this could be at a dinner table or anywhere and it could be related to work!), then she would just turn mid sentence and start talking to someone else, often in her African tongue! Or if there was no one around, then pick up the phone and start playing with it leaving me alone just hanging!  What the hell!  And then I noticed ALL OF THEM DID IT and not just the younger South African girls!  This amazed me! I could not get over  it. I could not get passed it because of my own upbringing so I avoided these ladies like the plague. I did not feel good about myself around them because I was so trained to always be attentive and polite, I could not help but own what was happening even though it wasn't my doing. I just decided it wasn't worth the conflict!

Now Thai people have a different idea about public conversations.  As westerners we sit in a gym at a school concert and watch the performance.  Seems simple.  In Thai culture, little conversations happen any time, and anywhere. Over and over the head of the school had to remind the Thai staff if they wanted to talk, to leave the classroom they shared with the English speaking staff because they would have a visit while your trying to teach!  Didn't think it was wrong or rude or anything, that is just the way that culture works.

Sometimes even in your own country with people you think are of a similar cultural background, you have to wonder what is going on. Some things I don't think are cultural. I think sayings like "twos company and three are a crowd" exist because there are group dynamics that have not just a cultural element but also a social/sexual and gender element as well however that is for another time.