Back to Society?

Back; unstructured time for the next 5 days, not including today. What to do?
Sitting on chairs, walking down grocery store isles; seeing pretty women in their summer clothing - skimpy, suggestive, and slightly offensive. What does it really mean to be alive and experience life?

Entering the restrooms of various places, I find an aversion to sitting upon the porcelain, especially when squatting has been the norm for the past week in the wilderness. Society takes on a weird, confusing tone.

Music; what a delicious treat for my self-starved melody-craving brain. A normalized, acceptable medium worth missing, in my opinion.

People pass by. I give and receive, accept and reflect smiles that feel genuine for both parties. This resonates warmly - happiness, respect - on the inside.

Returning to society after working exclusively in the wilderness for 8 days around the same seven people is quite a trip. My lens for looking, feeling, and experiencing others is different. Passing farts aloud, for example, is a practice in discernment, here in this place we call society: a group of people involved with each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or social territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members, (Source: Wikipedia).

 


Eventually, within an hour or two of being back, though, society seems normal enough; well, kind-of: Smartphones everywhere, personal computers - like this one I'm staring at, bicycles, steam-billowing locomotives, parking meters, electrical grids - linking masses of buildings and homes together in the unity of light: inventions of a modern society.

I feel myself conforming again, back to the accepted, expectable patterns. Tolerating to sit in chairs, when all week I've been sitting cross-legged, Indian style on nature's floor; meeting my primal survival judgement of people around me with compassion and acceptance for each individuals' differences - as I would myself.

Perplexed? Certainly.
Anxious? Not certain.
Appreciating life and opportunity? Oh yes!
Thank you.
Amen (so be it).