Thursday 12 February 2009

Cultural encounters.

After reading 'The Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers' (great title BTW)

Sometimes I miss being a freshly arrived immigrant who is so busy gathering information about the new country that has no time to worry about what might happen and what would have been. You really don't have time for introspections and any brain power left for deep emotions and feelings. You meet new people in new places using strange words in bizzare contexts, start a new job with its own jargon, have a network of public transport to master to get to work, move in a new house with some solutions that don't make sense cause you're used to them being different in your country andyou have to get used to these new ones, go shopping to find the familiar brands of food and deodorants under different names, try to register at GPs practice, tax office, university... It takes all your attention just to survive in the strange new world populated by people blathering in some vaguely englishlike language.

After a year you get used to the accent, inconprehensibility of bus routes and separate  taps for cold and hot water and that's when you start to feel again and think about the future and worry. You get settled and concentrate on having a satisfying job, good social life
and a partner you care about. Emotions hit you again without the protective veil of constant amazement at simple things. You stop to think about yourself as an immigrant.

I understand people, who never get settled, just travel from country to country, year after year. You exchange the feeling of safety, comfort and stability for freedom, exploration and superficility. It sounds alluring sometimes. Other times it sounds scary. But it is a way to live.

Too late for me, I'm already settled, I'm a resident in a cold, rainy, northern land.

Saturday 7 February 2009

You watch your whole life pass you by...

Do you have this feeling sometimes as well, imaginary reader? Like you are constantly standing on the sidewalk watching your own life race past you? Like you want to jump in at last but you’re to scared? Like you constantly struggle to catch up with yourself, so you just stop trying and have another lazy evening instead? And you end up thinking – if only I was faster, stronger, more determined I would, could, should, but I’m not. I’m... I’m not sure what I am actually...

We are so busy trying to find out who we are these days that we ignore the simplest fact - you are who you are and there’s not much you can do about it, really. But you are, at the same time, much more then you think you are. Confusing? Well, you don’t usually think about your lazy self too highly, do you? It’s always the If Only...

Close your eyes, take deep breath and try to fit in your own skin. It will itch, it will hurt, it will confuse the hell out of you to find out that deep inside, in the dozing part of your soul, you are faster, stronger and more determined than any imaginary you inhabiting the top layer of the same soul. You are perfectly able to jump in your own lifestream and have some fun before you drown in it.

Optimism is bad for you.

Thursday 5 February 2009

Unbelievable rant.

Oh the irony of life - it's perceived as wrong to impose your beliefs on others but if you don't follow other people's beliefs they will avoid you.

The choice - be yourlonelyself or groupconformist. Both sound like the names of exotic diseases...

By the way - what's with all the people in GP's waiting rooms always sitting on every third chair from each other? Are beliefs contagious these days or is it just good old paranoia?