Street Banging

Culture and Brains

Recently I posted on the internet what was intended to be a short comment about loosing 2 lovely cats from our home. In addition to my self-pity it brought about some comments that have compelled me to "put paper to pen" as it were.

Culture (and Language)

What I quickly learnt living in this country, and still struggle with, is the massive difference between the way people think here as opposed to other countries I've visited. 

To get some insight into the comparison, I've travelled to: 5 states in North America, most of western Europe, all of the UK, a little of Asia, and of course Oceania. The obvious absences are Central and South America, although I've had a deeper insight into Colombian culture in New Zealand than I might have had from travelling there.

Also to take into account is the fact that I've only stayed longer than one month in the following countries: New Zealand, England, Scotland, Turkey, Guernsey, Sweden, Malaysia (listed in order of time spent). And of those countries I've worked in all of them but Sweden. My point is that as a tourist you learn very little about a nation's people and are usually already prejudiced by stereotypes so that's what you tend to see.

To give a very simple example: in some countries it's accepted practice to say "I'd like a cup of tea, please."; in others "I want a cup of tea." They are in fact equivalent requests in their own languages. If you were to say the former in Thailand, for example, they'd think you were strange. Conversely stating the latter in England could cause offence.

Something that affronted me when I first arrived here was the rules for walking on pavements. I found myself constantly bumping into what I perceived to be very rude people. Common practice here, I have learnt over time, is to at the last second twist your shoulders about 30 degrees to avoid crashing into your on-comer. Also it's acceptable to some people to brush against the other person in passing even though there's plenty of room to avoid this.

Brains

This second point is very close to my heart. What I mean by "brains" is how they work and how they might not work under certain conditions.

People, generally, aren't able to fully comprehend how dramatic an impact these conditions can have on a persons day-to-day life. I'm of course talking about stress, depression, anxiety, and the like. I'm not limiting this to people with severe cases of these conditions - the same rules apply to anyone facing a stressful, or similar, situation.

I've found that people without their own experiences to reflect on tend to assume that your brain works the same as my brain. Let's face it - this is a problem in any situation even ignoring any form of illness.

The actually reality is that when in a state of anxiety, for example, a persons brain could be trying to solve 15 problems simultaneously. As, naturally, none of them are resolved, this often leads to stress which often leads to depression. Once at this stage the brain can simply stop to function at all. Or even worse, your brain is bombarding you with every negative though you've ever uttered or heard.

So What?

Well, you may or may not agree with what I've said. Either way perhaps consider there might be a totally different approach to something that the one you have. And neither your view nor another persons is necessarily the "right" view. Philosophically there is no "right" view. There is just "a" view.

You can talk!

Indeed. It would be nice to think that I approached issues like this all the time. It's entirely possible to do so with other people's situations but with my own, alas, I'm just the same as everyone else.

I still get mad sometimes when I bang into someone on the street.