Country side
Just thinking...
I would love to live in (on) the country side.
Yeah, this was largely inspired by a blog I've been reading, The Pioneer Woman, but still... it has some charm.
Waking up early to see the sunrise and NOT be surrounded by concrete roads and buildings and homes and cars?
I would love it.
Living in the city has a lot of advantages (not that my city is that big - about a 100,000 inhabitants, which actually sounds like quite much, come to think of it-), but sometimes I just long for nature.
To be able to go outside and be in nature and not having to cycle to it or something.
I'm still quite lucky, I suppose. I live rather close to the sea, about 45 minutes away by bicycle. To get there, I have to go through lowland. When you exit my city, there are villages, but there are rather sparse and there's a lot of countryside. There are some 'woods' nearby (parks, or whatever you want to call them). And the dunes near the sea are beautiful.
Still... living in nature sounds so peaceful. Tranquil. I wonder if I would be able to live in such a place - or if I just want to. I mean, I've never lived outside of the city.
Anyway... I was reading that blog. The Pioneer Woman lives in the countryside of Oklahoma. The 'city' she lives in has a population with something like 36% Native American...
and by God, I would love to have such a culture near me.
No matter how bad it sounds.
Every 'different' culture in this country came here as immigrants, as refugees. But Native Americans, well, they're native. They have a different background from ethnic minorities here. And from what I've read (which is, admittedly, not a lot; and nothing informative, but just novels, and only from a few tribes, too), they stand so close to nature. And I find that really important, which is another reason I want to escape the city. I don't want to live completely disconnected from the city... but not IN the city. Maybe on the edge.
Or not 'live' any place at all... just travel. I'm a traveller at heart, and I think I'd die if I'd have to spend my adult life behind some desk - it's just not me. When I read a book about a different life, a life I can't really recognize, my blood just starts to pump, and I want to soak up some of that culture. Just to have those new experiences. Enrich my life. And maybe that of others, too.
It is because of all this that I am considering going into development work - as in, going to a Third World country. Give the people a voice.
But it's so paradoxical. I'm pretty sure that all those people, whom we secretly pity because they're 'behind us', were perfectly fine, say 1000 years ago. They lead their life in a cycle, with life and death part of it, with rituals and religion and social settings that they may not always have agreed with, but which they knew. They had an identity.
Then we, the so-called 'developed', came and changed all that. Introduced them to the west, addict them to it - give them computers and guns and Coca Cola and god knows what else - and now? Yes, now they're 'undeveloped', and we tell ourselves we have to help them, make them live longer, prevent deaths.
But we are the ones who caused those in the first place. We implanted that idea - and somehow it became the standard for the rest of the world.
Or am I looking at this through glasses that are too westernized?
I would love to live in (on) the country side.
Yeah, this was largely inspired by a blog I've been reading, The Pioneer Woman, but still... it has some charm.
Waking up early to see the sunrise and NOT be surrounded by concrete roads and buildings and homes and cars?
I would love it.
Living in the city has a lot of advantages (not that my city is that big - about a 100,000 inhabitants, which actually sounds like quite much, come to think of it-), but sometimes I just long for nature.
To be able to go outside and be in nature and not having to cycle to it or something.
I'm still quite lucky, I suppose. I live rather close to the sea, about 45 minutes away by bicycle. To get there, I have to go through lowland. When you exit my city, there are villages, but there are rather sparse and there's a lot of countryside. There are some 'woods' nearby (parks, or whatever you want to call them). And the dunes near the sea are beautiful.
Still... living in nature sounds so peaceful. Tranquil. I wonder if I would be able to live in such a place - or if I just want to. I mean, I've never lived outside of the city.
Anyway... I was reading that blog. The Pioneer Woman lives in the countryside of Oklahoma. The 'city' she lives in has a population with something like 36% Native American...
and by God, I would love to have such a culture near me.
No matter how bad it sounds.
Every 'different' culture in this country came here as immigrants, as refugees. But Native Americans, well, they're native. They have a different background from ethnic minorities here. And from what I've read (which is, admittedly, not a lot; and nothing informative, but just novels, and only from a few tribes, too), they stand so close to nature. And I find that really important, which is another reason I want to escape the city. I don't want to live completely disconnected from the city... but not IN the city. Maybe on the edge.
Or not 'live' any place at all... just travel. I'm a traveller at heart, and I think I'd die if I'd have to spend my adult life behind some desk - it's just not me. When I read a book about a different life, a life I can't really recognize, my blood just starts to pump, and I want to soak up some of that culture. Just to have those new experiences. Enrich my life. And maybe that of others, too.
It is because of all this that I am considering going into development work - as in, going to a Third World country. Give the people a voice.
But it's so paradoxical. I'm pretty sure that all those people, whom we secretly pity because they're 'behind us', were perfectly fine, say 1000 years ago. They lead their life in a cycle, with life and death part of it, with rituals and religion and social settings that they may not always have agreed with, but which they knew. They had an identity.
Then we, the so-called 'developed', came and changed all that. Introduced them to the west, addict them to it - give them computers and guns and Coca Cola and god knows what else - and now? Yes, now they're 'undeveloped', and we tell ourselves we have to help them, make them live longer, prevent deaths.
But we are the ones who caused those in the first place. We implanted that idea - and somehow it became the standard for the rest of the world.
Or am I looking at this through glasses that are too westernized?