Gradually realizing that, now that my personality feels contingent and impersonal, new social contexts feel like jolts in the reality model.
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The difference in energy from Norway to Poland is extreme.
Polish social reality is anarchic, loud, harsh and intensely warm.
Norway is comparatively structured, cushy and quiet, cold/detached and yet mostly pleasant.
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So entering Poland doesn't just feel like different climate and sensory environment.
It feels like being hit by a tidal wave of expectations, demands and intangible yet imposing structures.
Like so:
GIF
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Without recourse to sociology, it feels like there are things I can do here that couldn't be done in Norway, and vice-versa.
Like the laws of reality are subtly different.
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I'm sure this will come across as fairly esoteric. I certainly wouldn't know what I was talking about, not so long ago.
But I'll be damned if it isn't one of the most oppressive feelings I've ever experienced.
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In Norway, walls feel like walls. Heavy, solid. Even the thinner wooden walls.
Every wall in Poland feels brittle, paper-thin. Like it's just waiting for the sudden blow of a hammer. Even meter-thick concrete.
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I could go on making comparison after comparison, and I expect it would all sound like overly affectatious poetry.
But it's not.
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Wow, this experientially sounds a bit like the difference between being in Canada (every anglo province) and being in the US.
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Mmh. It's a lot like how those two are stereotyped. And my one stay in the US (in brief custody at LA airport) fit well with the Polish vibe.