gemini://thurk.org/blog/115.gmi

I have just come across this in the book I am currently reading:

> This, I have come to think, is a very American reaction, rewarding eccentric effort with scorn and violence.

The book is one that **Christopher** got me for *X*mas, titled *Fresh Air Fiend* by **Paul Theroux**.

I agree with him that it is a typical American reaction. But I'll go even further. It is the reaction of any *peasant* to unknown or unintelligible behaviour. I have been greeted, as has many a human I have known, by such upon numerous occasions. I surely have *mellowed* from my outwardly eccentric ways over the years (and I find this unfortunate, to tell you the truth), but they still broil within at similar temperatures as they did in my *youth*.

In a village in the Czech Republic, I go swaggering in wearing outlandish clothing, unwashed, with a capacious **pack** on my **back**, and I'll get odd stares, hear peasants muttering behind my back, be passively scorned. Being a peasant is an insular state of being, no matter the outward appearance. In Theroux's book, the man who arrived after a 2600 mile journey in a rowboat is scored by drunks and ruffians. America being what it is, a parallel in most of Europe would just be passive-agressive scurrility.

The group I fell into in Prague was insular. It was evidenced by the long table they sat at in *Hadry*. Other such groups existed and interaction between them was limited to the occasional foozball *tournament*. I fell in and I fell out eventually because I did not conform to their particular set of eccentricities. My own were, as Christian says, *out*.

Being *out* is relative to the insular group which drifts in and out of your social patterns the most.

Waving Wands of Wisdom at the Well Cared For Wino

Topics: disconnection, praha, sociology, theroux

2011-03-17