“What’s Different About Living In Croatia Than In California?” (Part III)

Amazingly, there are now less than four weeks left to this summer’s stay in California before I head back to Croatia, in my back-and-forth mid-life between the two places

Which I’ve been chronicling in this (non)book.

Which I started in April, in Croatia.

And of which this particular (non)chapter IS NOW THE TWENTY-FIRST. (Holy crap!)

Which means that life and time are simply flying the hell by.

Which is something that is the same in Croatia and California.

And which is the topic of this Part III to the (non)book section answering the question, “What’s Different About Living In Croatia Than In California:

What’s the same in both places?

1. Gossip

People love to talk.

People love to talk about each other.

People love to talk about each other to other people who know the same other people when those other people are not right there in the room with them.

I have spent (uncharacteristically, for my introvert soul) gigantic portions of this summer in California meeting up with lots and lots and lots of friends. Some I’ve known fifty years. Some I’ve known only a year or two. People I’ve known and met under all kinds of different circumstances and in different activities and different groups.

Regardless of the diversity of those circumstances under which we’ve come to know each other and hang out together, what everyone in every situation always wants to know is what everyone else is doing. And who you’ve seen. And what is going on with them. And whether you’ve heard x, y and z.

And whenever I am alone and overhearing the conversations of strangers (which is one of my favorite things to do . . . to be a fly on the wall observing the customs and habits of my fellow humans), gossip is an even bigger topic. (My friends tend to be generous and creative souls who do move on to other topics of conversations.)

On one four-mile hike I took by myself on a well-traveled (think pedestrian highway) path on one Saturday, I actually kept track of the figures.

Eighty-percent of the conversations I overheard were of people discussing (mostly problems with) other people that they knew who were not along on the hike with them. (Most of remaining twenty-percent of the conversations were the snapping-at-each-other of parents frustrated with child-management along the trail.)

And you know what?

I’m kinda pretty much doing the exact same thing right here.

I’m reporting to you, in a somewhat scolding, judgmental, tattling way, about the people who aren’t here with us.

I’m telling you . . . it’s ubiquitous.

Which means it’s no different in Croatia.

To the extent that one recent morning here in California, I answered the phone and found my Croatian apartment landlord on the line . . . an American who owns the place and stays there in the summer with his American family . . . with questions about whether I was buying property there.

Because that was what the gossip in town was.

That’s what the Croats in the ‘hood had told him.

In fact, that I was already in contract with someone.

Yeah.

No.

Not at all.

Because . . . for example, and as I have chronicled here at length in the previous (non)chapters of this (non)book . . . the last thing I want to do at this point in my life is to set down any long-term roots anywhere. And it’s not in the current budget. And the idea of having to be responsible for property and maintenance cools my blood.

And so many more ands.

So.

Please know.

People gossip about you when you’re not in the room with them. And they often get things completely wrong, but tell them to others as if they’re right. And please know this seems to be absolutely inherent in human nature. And that there’s therefore nothing you can do about it. And that it’s also pointless to take any of it personally.

2. Politics . . . .

Here are some of the 2,000 year old remains of Salona, the ancient Roman capital of the province of Dalmatia, outside the contemporary city of Split, Croatia.

People were up in arms (literally) about government, governance and politics and politicians then.

They still are now.

No matter where you go.

There’s hardly anything more I want to say about this subject.

Because it is one that I have come to feel . . . perhaps cynically, and definitely sadly and frustratedly . . . that talking about simply does not help. It is all either preaching to the choir, or insulting one’s perceived enemies.

Also because the political history of Croatia is so complicated and so many more thousands of years older than anything we deal with here in the United States, that I’m not qualified even to have an opinion about.

But I do know that it feels, as someone watching, that most people in both of the countries I spend most of my time in currently have a deep distrust and despair in the process, the actors, the outcomes . . . all. No matter which side anyone is on.

Which, like gossip, also seems to be something inherently human.

3. Distrust of “other”

What is a respectful and illuminating way to say this?

What is a helpful way to discuss the fact that bigotry seems to be as hardwired in the human brain as the need to gossip?

Perhaps we start with science.

Which is recently finding that human brains are indeed hard-wired for tribalism as a means of survival.

Which means that we are only “naturally” empathic to people we perceive as the same as ourselves.

Which worked more or less when we were a world of tiny tribes spaced far apart.

And which works waaaaaay less (and tragically so, and over and over and over again) now that the whole globe is, essentially, the same tribe.

And/but that until you can re-train your brain to perceive the global tribe — instead of that everyone who does not live and look and act exactly like you in it is a (bad, inferior, threatening) “other” — you are still . . . in impolite terms . . . a bigot . . . whose old-style brain perceives “others” as un-equal.

There are bigots everywhere.

There are people who believe “others” are nothing but trouble, and really ought to be removed from “our” territory.

There are people who are more global-brained than this, but who still harbor distrust and grudges (understandable ones, but grudges nonetheless) and are comfortable with divisions.

You know what I mean.

People are endlessly dividing themselves against others.

Republicans versus Democrats. Bernie versus Hillary. Black lives mattering versus everyone who can’t understand what that slogan means. Law enforcement versus anyone who has any criticisms of law enforcement.

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

You get the picture.

It’s everywhere.

In Croatia, it’s so complex and pervasive for such a tiny population that there is a part of me that is in awe of its . . . artistry? Saturation? Complexity? Stunningness?

Here are some examples.

Croatia has a population of around four million.

When I left in June, it had 153 political parties.

(There might be more now.)

This is how it is. The division. The commitment to stay committed to what you believe in, who you are loyal to, and who you perceive is loyal to you. Based on hundreds if not thousands of years of political upheaval, change, wars, atrocities, oppressions, liberations. Based on geography and religion and allies and enemies and things that change and things that don’t.

Croatia is the size of West Virginia. It has five general geographic-based regions: Istria, Dalmatia, Zagorje, Lika, and Slavonia. Twenty-five years ago, there was a war there for national independence. And Croatia emerged as a newly-independent country.

Nevertheless, Croats are still finding endless room to find divisions . . . some hilarious, some disturbing and tragic . . . among themselves. Are you Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or Muslim? Are you from the interior, or the coast? Are you from “the land” or “the islands?” And “Who are your people?” In other words, where have you come from for generations?

There are jokes and beliefs and superstitions based on all these differences. A man I met from Zagreb (interior, capital) scoffed at the fish (from the sea fifty meters away that the man had come to swim in for his vacation) barbecued by my Dalmatian (coast) next-door neighbor because pork was what must be served at a barbecue.

Words, expressions, accents are different all over the country. Almost vastly so, for someone like me trying to learn the language. I am frequently told, “In Dalmatia, we don’t say that,” when it comes to a word choice or a way to pronounce one that is apparently okay to use.

4. Coffee and food and love and drink

Yep.

Those are the same in both my homes, too.

Humans love coffee and alcohol and good food and each other. And being able to, despite the difficulties of politics and divisions and petty differences, talk and share together. To find out that each individual, despite it all, has something interesting to share. And holds the possibility of friendship or love or other kind of helpful ally-hood.

People are people.

Good and bad.

And both of those things exist in each and every one of us.

Everywhere.