Reverse Culture Shock

I was a bit surprised today to notice reverse culture shock. I was going for a jog (enjoying the cool mornings), listening to a podcast discussion on the value of democracy and found myself infuriated by the triviality of it all. There are many people without water, electricity, food or healthcare all over the world and yet someone has made a podcast in which they discuss why more young Britons don’t vote. It’s so unimportant! They would vote if they wanted to. The fact probably is that they live in comfortable enough societies and don’t really care.

The other thing that annoys me now is when people on the news complain about things like state pensions or school provisions. These are amazing things already! A free education – that’s a wonderful thing!! And yet what gets reported on the news is people complaining that they didn’t get their choice of school. They should try an exchange program to see what it’s like sending a child to school in Uganda. There they can watch their child do 12 years of schooling, paying money to send them to go to a government school, and still emerge unable to speak English (the country’s official language). Next to that our problems seem pretty small. If we’re going to live in a world where there are massive inequalities, the privileged half ought at least to appreciate it!

As I was thinking this I notice that someone (presumably the local council) had put down a new path in the field I was running in. I decided to follow it. It was very nice but potentially also a little unnecessary. Maybe someone could have taken that money and donated it to send 30 Ugandan children to school.

I trust this reverse culture shock will wear off soon. It doesn’t do to be so anxty.