Close Encounters

Hello...

Situation: you are deep down, watching a small flat worm, worming his way around. Depth 36 meters. Air pressure 170 bar, dropping. Remaining bottom time: critical. You look up and you are face to face (if you can call it a face) with an alien.

What you should do?

a) press ctrl+alt+del immediately

b) remove regulator and start chanting “Me friend, me friend, no enemy!”

c) hot-wire your Galileo computer into FB and post your last post

d) say “Hello, dear mother-in-law...”

I decided to ask this friendly cuttle fish, what was her perception of an encounter with a diver. Poor thing was in a state of total shock, so we had to wait for a while, until she was able to express herself.

 

Then she burst: “What a horrible thing!!! This ugly thing was holding a snake head in its mouth (regulator?) and waving its terrible tentacles (legs and arms?) and coming closer and closer!!! I will have nightmares for a while... How these grotesque creatures breed?! If they would come close to each other, they would start screaming in terror and not copulating... Must be wireless breeding...”

Looks like long, shapely legs, dreamy eyes and sweet smile can attract certain creatures and fill with ultimate horror another creature.

When traveling, especially to more exotic places, we experience a part of this xenophobia. Color of skin, cultural differences, habits, believes, shape of the nose, religions, perceptions... everything can be a little strange.

And what is strange to us we can translate into dangerous, hateful, to be eliminated. And here we go, brave, top positioned animals on the planet...

I try to work on lessening my xenophobia by working in one exotic place (Bali) and taking holidays in another exotic place (Slovenia). However, if I start screaming when you will wave your arms and try to hug me at our reunion, well, workshop positive results are still in process...:)