A mind game

I’ve always been in love with the countryside- it’s in my blood. I’d be happy enough in a little cabin somewhere deep in the forest with the only company of a few pets and the wild life itself.

But things cannot be that simple anymore; and especially not for young people like me with no money or knowledge of how to survive in the wilderness without buying food and warm winter clothes. Don’t get me wrong though; I grew up on the countryside and would not be totally hopeless. I’m pretty sure I can light a fire for warmth and cooking, I can probably make a snare to catch rabits with (which is illegal), and shoot something if I could afford the amunition and no one asked for license. But I would not know how to create a totally selfsuficient household without the need of buying food or clothes without starv or freeze to death first.

To day I’m living in a city which is great regarding the communications and close access to stores and the like but it’s also torture for someone like me who love peace and quiet and privacy. One don’t get much of that here. I get tired and sometimes disgusted of seeing human beings every day and long for the times when days passed by and I’d see no one but my family.

The honest truth is that I want to go home but I got to stay in town for my own sake. I’ve got this feeling that if I go home now I’ll never be able to get away from my home village again. I would become too adapted to it and the life there that I’ll never be able to function in real society again.

I know it sounds a little bit silly, or maybe even like rubbish all together, but I sense that there’s more to it than that. What if the human mind has some kind of phaze where it’s supposed to choose between staying close to the family, probably under its rule, and starting a new life somewhere else? And depending on the choice the mind settle itself in a certain pattern best adapted for the chosen environment? If one then live outside that chosen environment the mind might not be so good at dealing with the situation which perhaps causes slight discomfort.

The brain of a human being is said to grow and develop in a period of approximitly twenty years or so. During that time we live through a variety of phazes; childhood, teenage/young adulthood and adulthood and probably many more. Humans learn new things through out their entire life but I believe they are bound to do it after certain conditions depending on how the brain was shaped during its time of growth. These conditions might also determen some basic behavior and personlaitytraits that won’t change much no matter what. The brain is habbit bound and likes rutines and things of familiarity. Perhaps there are phazes when we are more or less sensetive to pattern shaping experiences, maybe even after the brain has become an “adult” and stopped growing.

I was 19 and a half when I for the first time moved far away from my parental home and influence in the year 2007 and stayed away for a period longer than a week. Six months as i happens. I never once got homesick. My only conclusion for that, since I love my parents to bits, was that I was ready to fly on my own. It was a perfect time for me to start a life on my own.

The Spring 2008 I was determend not to go back home again. I was sick and tired of living under my mother’s rule and wanted something on my own. But it was impossible and in the end I had to go home after all. The sommer was spent with tension and the occasional argument and then I got a job opportunity as an au pair. Unfortunatly it didn’t work out and the tensions back home became nothing in compare to the once I experienced there so I had to go home again. The next months home was spent as if I never left at all.

Now that I live in a flat in town not quite alone but still independent I sometimes tend to get homesick. It’s not only the nature I miss but also the safe haven under the wings of my parents. Once there was a time when I did not fear my own independence but rather the opposit and now I sometimes feel that things were so much easier when someone else was in charge. This makes me suspect that there might be a phaze in our developments as human beings where the brain is especially open to environmental changes and ready to adapt to them like when wolf pups prepare to either stay in the old pack with their parents or to move on by them selves. What then, if the choice is being made for you? You’re ready to move on but are interupted and readapts to the rule of your old pack and stays long enough for the brain to settle for that. Will you be irrevocably stuck in the pack then? Or will there be other chances?

The reason why I suspect it might become a stationary state of mind is because three or four sons of my village still live there under close guard of their parents though they are well passed the age of 25, 30, 40 and 50. And they are not likely to move. That’s why I fear that if I go home now I’ll too become one of these sons because the brain might not be too keen on changing its mind after it has settled itself. Hopefully it’s not yet too late for me and that I can find a job here so I can stay and become civilized. Perhaps I’ll turn my gaze to a cabin in the wilderness later in life but it seems too soon to turn my back on civilisation just yet.

I hope that my brain adapting phaze hasn’t expired yet and I will be able to set my mind on independence again. There’ll be a struggle but hopefully not a painful one.