Who am I?
Perhaps the question to ask ourselves is:
Where am I?
In an identity obsessed world, have we even uncovered what it is that make us us? People are people, we really are the same wherever I go at the heart of things.
Yet the land, the places, the environment, this is all different. How humanity has reacted and evolved with respect to their environment, therein lies where all these customs, identities, rituals, and styles come from.
Perhaps I am oversimplifying it? But is it not that Vodka, Furs and the instruments that can be made in Russia are because of the landscape?
Same so for the coconuts and beirumbau of the tropics.
Does the mean you can change who you are by moving?
Absolutely. I’m not talking about fundamentally, holistically, or anything. But a significant amount of your life will change based on behavior changing and having a new environment to shape you.
That isn’t to say of course in this digital age one can’t replicate all their habits and patterns wherever they go. Of course, there must be an attitude of openness, willingness to embrace the change, to work with the Land and Nature. Perhaps this is the rarest of human qualities these days…
To let the land shape us, rather than us constantly mastering and shaping it. If that is the whole of our Colonial approach to the Nature, it is no wonder we’ve felt disconnected and disillusioned the more technologically advanced we’ve gotten. If our identity and place are interdependent, then to cut ourselves off from the uniqueness of our land is to cut ourselves off from our very identity. It’s no wonder such strong emotions are tied to hometown and college sports teams, these shadows of place and identity harken to the much deeper roots of knowing the season and trees and waters of one’s locale…
In short-I suggest a walk. Humidity, cold, heat, wind or no-your land has you as much as you have it.
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