Personal

Looking Back Over 2010

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Real estate brokers in Costa Rica

I’ve never had a year quite like 2010. Amazing, life altering, wonderful, scary and perplexing would be just a few of the descriptors that would sum this year up for me. The Weather At the start of the new year, we here in Costa Rica are still drying out from what has proved to be … Read more

New Theory Explains Why We Find Costa Rica So Darn Pleasant

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Lone woman on a beach thinking

or – How Media Saturation Robs Us Of Our Joy
or – an Original Thought is a good thing

We humans find ourselves intriguing, in fact – fascinating. Theories explaining the experience of being human abound .

One theory that I heard as a young man has stuck with me through the years. This theory now finds a rather interesting application in my life of living as an expat here in Costa Rica. I see the possible truth to this theory as I observe what I have come to know as “4th Day Original Thought Syndrome” or “4DOTS” in Costa Rica. Based on this thing that happens on day #4, many decide that they would like to either make Costa Rica Home, or to at least make it a big part of their life.

Observation:

4DOTS is simple – it’s really nothing more than relaxation. But I need to do a footnote definition here of what I mean by relaxation. It’s more than just having our neck muscles relax and our shoulders lower down by a couple inches, (which they do on day 4). 4 DOTS relaxation has to do with the mind.

The Theory:

It is thought that when we first have an experience as a baby, we fire off a unique circuit in our brain. The experience is profound and frequently pleasurable. We are drawn to the subject experience again and again to get better acquainted. We call this learning.

Let’s say that at the age of 1 year our Mother puts us on the warm, sunny lawn in our back yard to crawl around. A new circuit is fired through our brain and we are fascinated by the greenness of the experience and the warmth of the green. The texture is slightly prickly but not unpleasantly so. There is a humid component and a wonderful smell that we will later on associate with the word “earthy”.

From this point on in our lives this same circuit fires every time we experience warm green grass, causing a familiarity with the experience, and this we call memory. So the theory goes.

(As an aside, i t is thought that the psychoactive drug LSD causes variations in our established and familiar brain circuitry. This can be profoundly pleasurable (or disturbing) and cause fascination with what we adults would consider to be mundane things. This would explain why people on LSD can be seen studying their hand, or marveling at the grass they are standing on. )

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Costa Rica Culture – Say Hello

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When we first moved to Costa Rica in 1999, my son Neil was 11 years old and my daughter Hannah was 15. In those early days, after coming home from a visit to the town center, maybe to the grocery store or whatever, they would complain “Dad, why do they stare?”

The answer was and is “because they are Ticos.”

One of the major reasons that I chose to move to a foreign land with my family was that we, as a family, would learn another culture & language. Well, I’m happy to say that it worked. We learned a language and a culture, but lord knows it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

Typical Latin American Greeting
Typical Latin American Greeting

It really helps to keep in mind the objective: that of learning a new culture.  That way when things are different, we can tell ourselves: “that’s why I came here.”  The problem is that sometimes different equates to strange and uncomfortable.

The eye contact thing was something that, for me, took a little getting used to, and even more so for my kids. In time we all have come to appreciate it.  In Costa Rica you always acknowledge the presence of the other person, whether it be driving along a dirt road and passing a guy walking along, or in the grocery store as you walk past the stocker.

I think that my gringo, privacy-loving heart, is a little afraid that if I engage with this person, they will take a bunch of my time, or need something from me.  I think that it was somewhere right about the 200th greeting – the 200th greeting that happened for the simple love of the greeting, I began to accept it.  Touch base, say hello, share a good feeling and move on with your day.

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In Memory of Sean McGraw

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Very much in keeping with the theme of Costa Rica real estate, I thought I’d take advantage of the liberties afforded me as the owner of this blog and write about the death of a professional associate, and a friend, Sean McGraw. Sean died Tuesday night, March 24th, 2009, in a car accident. He was … Read more