You MUST read

Beyond Culture, by Edward T. Hall

Here is an excerpt

" Today children are brought up on a different time system - one that is less obviously tied down in time and space, and to single institutions; there is also growing pressure to overcome monotny and the tempo conflicts between man and the machine. Because we have put ourselves in our own zoo, we find it difficult to break out. Since people can't fight institutions on which their lives depend, the result is that first they unconsciously turn their anger inward then later outward. |...]

The cultural and psychological insight that is important for us to accept is that denying culture and obscuring the effects that it can have on human talents can be as destructive and potentially dangerous as denying evil. We must come to terms with both. [...]

We can all benefit from a deeper knowledge of what an incredible organism we really are. We can grow, swell with pride, and breathe better for having so many remarkable talents. To do so, however, we must stop ranking both people and talents and accept the fact that there are many roads to truth and no culture has a corner on the path or is better equipped than others to search for it.[...] "

Edwart T. Hall is an anthropologist, who studied particularly the "unconscious" culture that molds everyone's behavior and vision of the world : the different perception of Time and Space, and all kind of non-verbal behavior. This is really interesting, it helps you see yourself and others differently. And even if he has a scientific approach, his writing is really beautiful, poetic sometimes...

In The danse of life, another of his book, he compares at some point the "occidental" conception of Time, and a more "primitive" conception, like we can see in the Hopi culture, in which people experience Time as something natural, and do not associate it with money or progress, but just a rythmical element of life.

Hall says we should not rank people and cultures, but I want to say that we should learn from this way of conceiving Time, as well as a lot other aspect of lifes, closer to Nature and more respectful to it and to other human beings ...