Feral in an urban context


In so-called developing countries, I often happen to see some truly unique individuals. The most incredible ones are those who live practically in the wild, yet within an urban environment.
They follow behavioral codes and develop survival tactics that for us regimented ones (someone will read "civilized") are totally foreign. They behave a bit like pre-agricultural nomads, but exploit all the possibilities that modernity makes available to them.
They may appear curious, funny, mysterious, but they are certainly full-fledged human beings, self-sufficient—indeed, certainly better than us specimens of "homo technologicus" at getting by in times of hardship.
Furthermore, although they are viewed with suspicion by passersby and are also targeted by police raids, they seem to cling to a sense of freedom and self-determination that is perhaps the real motivation behind their extreme choices.
I wonder then, why don't we see people like that here—or at least, almost never? Could it be that we carefully suppress certain traits inherent to human nature itself, so that that kind of individual does not appear in society? Would they bother us? Would they throw our system of rules and values into crisis? Would they scare us?
I find the simple question itself—its legitimacy and possibility—profoundly unsettling.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

Comments

Post a Comment

Most popular shreds (so to speak)

On the black hill - Bruce Chatwin

Image
I’ve had Bruce Chatwin on my author list for a long time. I thought he was mainly a travel writer: I remember some friends of mine referring to “In Patagonia” and “What am I doing here” as great travel literature. When I found “On the black hill” on the shelves of one of my favorite used book stores I realized that he wrote fiction as well.
Read the rest of this post »
 

AirAsia: not so cool anymore

Image
Having been a rather regular customer of AirAsia - since the beginning, when they were still using old planes and few people trusted them (“They are always late...they'll lose your luggage.” was the typical refrain people were singing in Malaysia) - I can say that their online booking procedure was fast, simple, transparent and fair, their prices among the cheapest and their brand one of the coolest. Well...not anymore. Going through just a few screens, filling a limited number of fields and clicking some buttons one could choose date, destination, number of passengers, one way or return, could select their favorite flight among the available options, enter their personal data, the credit card ones and that was it. As I said: fast, simple, transparent and fair. No free meal and no seat allocation, true, but their prices were dirt cheap, really unbeatable on some routes. This took by surprise the traditional carriers that lost large shares of the market while AirAsia, from a ...
Read the rest of this post »
 

Passage-brothels in Brickfields - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Image
Photo of a passage-brothel, taken hurriedly and on the sly Brickfields is a neighborhood close to Kuala Lumpur central station (KL Sentral, yes, with "S"). Unlike other areas of the center it has remained rather untouched by the waves of modernity that altered large parts of the city, even though the imposing lines of skyscrapers and infrastructures besiege it assiduously. The district is home to a picturesque Little India, budget hotels, little multi-ethnic restaurants, street stalls and places of worship, including numerous Christian churches.  The most bizarre joints, though, are a series of long and narrow passages facing the sidewalks. The entrance half-hidden by a rag used as a curtain, a pale pink light coming out of the clear sides, from which it is possible to peep at a sequence of run-down doors, each one watched over by a scantily-clad lady leaning on a doorpost or seated on a plastic stool. A pimp with the typical attitude of a human-spider (I was about to wr...
Read the rest of this post »