Responses

I appreciated Cheri's comment below about how our environments change us. What we would do in one place would be totally unthinkable (or not of interest) in another. This observation is exactly what I am getting at too-- I want my environment to have an influence on me. I want to try out new ways of living and enjoying life. Although i do not plan to go hunting again any time soon, I still enjoyed the new acquaintances, the fresh, chilly air, the food, the sense of feeling like I COULD, sort of, belong. Or, at least, i am accepted. Not because I cozied up to their traditions or what was expected. I definitely acted out of my own free will, having alternating feelings of skepticism and joy.
Cheri wrote:
"I wonder how much our moral, even aesthetic (?), sensibilities are bound up with the communities we find ourselves in. or more, the communities we want to identify with and those that we're defining ourselves against. when i was in china with you, i found myself much more willing to eat pork than i've been anywhere else. while in france, i conscientiously recycled, at home i don't even recycle my newspapers."