Disorientation

You know that feeling when you're in a foreign city.

Regardless of whether you are familiar with the local language, things will be different from home. The street signage, the colour of the buses and the taxis, the newspapers on sale at the kiosks.

Sometimes the people will look different, either physically or merely in the way they dress. This brings a certain feeling of disorientation, a sense of not being of a location, although one is at that location.

The further afield one goes, the more exotic the difference between "home" and "here" may be. Therefore, the sense of disorientation may increase significantly.

But supposing one felt that sense of disorientation in surroundings with which one might feel familiar and comfortable?

Today, I was in the city, 40 km from home, conducting some business. I was standing in a queue waiting to pay my car park charge. Suddenly I got this notion - even though I have often been in the city before, I explored the idea of being a total stranger - not just to the city, but to the country, the culture, the language, everything. It wasn't a disturbing notion at all. The feeling of disoritentation was just the same as if I'd been in a car park in Paris or Berlin. I wouldn't have felt threatened or discommoded there, so why would I feel discommoded here?

It was almost as if I'd travelled to a foreign location and was experiencing the city (and the car park) for the first time. And maybe I was, in a curious sort of way...

...so perhaps, one can travel to foreign locations in one's head. Sure does wonders for one's carbon footprint!

Greetings

Hello.

You don't know me and I don't know you.

This should not cause a problem for either of us, since there isn't an awful lot you need to know about me at this stage.

However, if things progress as I hope they will, then you'll get to know a lot more about me as time rolls on.

I'll still know nothing about you, however, unless you make the effort to get in touch.

So that's your challenge for the day.