On 09/29/2011 07:07 AM, turquoiseb wrote:
> Still puzzling over the differences between the Dutch culture and the
> Barcelona culture, after my recent trip back there. I think it comes
> down to living for the future vs. living in the moment.
>
> Spain is to some extent a live-in-the-moment culture. Part of this is
> that they're still emerging from the Franco years, one of the longest,
> dreariest periods any people has had to endure. There is still an
> ever-present appreciation for having the right to party, having the
> right to dance, having the right to wear whatever you want, and having
> the right *not* to have the Guardia Civil pound on your door in the
> middle of the night to disappear you. If all of those things sound like
> "inalienable rights" to you, as if they are to be taken for granted,
> they were denied to the Spanish people for 40 years; to some extent
> they're still making up for lost time.
>
> Interestingly the youth, who never lived under Franco, caught the wave
> of relief felt by their parents, and tend to party like there is no
> tomorrow. I am told by the party crowd (and no, I'm SO not one of
> them...too old) that part of the reason for the renewed popularity of
> cocaine is to get people through the 72-hours-without-sleep marathons
> that are Barcelona weekends. They add the cocaine to whatever E and Red
> Bull they're living on. Not really my kinda scene.
>
> Still, I really appreciated feeling an overriding sense of "enjoying the
> Now" in Barcelona. I don't feel that as much here in the Netherlands. As
> nice a culture as it is in many ways, I get the feeling -- except in
> certain hoods in Amsterdam -- that most people have their lives all
> planned out by the time they're 16, and rarely, if ever, deviate from
> that plan. They may party down on Friday and Saturday nights, but rarely
> Sunday night, because they have school or work the next morning, and
> it's important to actually do a good job there. Which I appreciate. The
> only worse work ethic I've ever seen to Spain's was in Hawaii; you
> couldn't count on getting anything done in either place on a Monday or a
> Friday if your life depended on it.
>
> Anyway, these are just cafe ramblings pondering (yet again) the
> usefulness of Road Trips. It's fascinating how just taking yourself out
> of your normal environment for a few days allows you to view it as not
> normal, and thus not to be taken for granted. I still prefer it here,
> but I miss some of the spontaneous joy I got to take for granted in
> Spain.
I have a theory that people who live in colder climates tend to be more
cerebral and rule based because the winters are cold and they can't do
much other than sit around and think. Whereas more southerly and
tropical environments where it is warmer most of the year and one can
live off the fruits of the jungle tends to make people more emotionally
based and more spontaneous because they don't have an incentive to sit
around and think.
