Travel & Culture

I asked my grandpa why travel and he gave me a very good explanation on why travel. The basic answer that I was used to give was travel lets you meet new people and experience different ways of living. Nowadays, I find that answer to be unsatisfactory, since I couldn’t really understand if I was rationalizing an external signal or if I truly wanted to travel. Essentially is the desire coming from within or is it a social thing. Sometimes the story of the experience is cooler than the experience itself, meaning the joy of travelling would come from telling the story and not the actual travelling. Quite the digression, but my grandpa said the same thing about people and new experiences but he added history. There is a history in the land from the rocks that became soil to the cultures that changed as people moved around. Each culture informs the broader context of ideals, and each individual is a mosaic of clashing cultures.

Side note : Now that I’m back saying I went surfing in Goa is not even close to going surfing in Goa, so it’s not a social justification.

This time when I went to India, I was observant of how people treated each other, specifically how buying and selling works in India. The concept of building rapport is under played, transactions have a transactional nature that consumes the exchange. The server and the customer (at restaurants) are just server and customer, there is no identity besides that immediate exchange. There is barely any smiling, politeness, from both parties. This explains why Indians are the hardest to sell a car to, because they are looking to buy a car, and that’s it. When I was selling cars, it bugged me that Indians would just come in, no being Mr. Nice guy and everything would come down to price. At the time, I just thought Indians are just rude people. Now after this trip, that’s just how service is in India, no ones complaining if you don’t say please and thank you. Not saying it’s good or bad, but it tripped me out. If anything it’s more subtle, like a smile, or head nod.

Now this would be very different if you visit India for yourself, since I look Indian and speak the native tongue, this is how I get treated. I believe foreigners would be treated better. At Least it seems so, they probably get scammed more too.

Origin of Species

Chapter 3 : Struggle for existence

Struggle almost invariably will be most severe between individuals of the same species, for they frequent the same districts, require the same food, and are exposed to the same dangers

Geometric progression - If species were able to propagate with no checks then they would soon dominate the world. An example of this would be humans, since we have found ways around even natures checks,i.e medicine for diseases.

Natures checks - Everything from climate to the co-existing species are ways of keeping a species population under control. In the case of plants, each plant is competing with other plants on which could make the best nectar for the bee, for the bee moves pollen from anther to stigma which fertilizes the next generation of plants.

Due to these factors, and more the structure of every organic being is related. I found that to be interesting. In any environment the beings present in that area are related, not through relation of being in the same genus, or having a common ancestor but structure has been adapted to fit in with all other species.

This is obvious in the structure of the teeth and talons of the tiger; and in that of the legs and claws of the paradise which clings to the hair on the tiger’s body.

Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Classics of World Literature, Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1998.