These are the words of Coehlo and they seemed interesting to me.. I'm not going into what extrovert and introvert may mean - that's your food for thought, but another thing popped into my brain. It is about what it means to be Canadian and/or Romanian and it came from the text above that says 'constantly proving to themselves', as opposed to proving things to others. Here we go..
In Canada I mostly met true people. The meaning of that is that they didn't pretend to be something that they are not and overall had a humility that for a Romanian raised was remarkable. In fact is in the Canadian constitution that besides 'Northern', Canadians are moderate, or in the middle of the pack, or try not to stand out. I tried to find the actual text, but could not. The main idea is that Canadians, if I may generalize, are humble, real and unbelievable to me, when it comes to a way of being. They are of course boring, not courageous or don't put themselves out. I can say that because I too, have Canadian citizenship. In Romania the word 'humility' has a negative baggage.
I had the pleasure in university, at UBC, to sit in the classes of one professor called Petr Petro, a Slovak by birth, who described what he disliked about Canadians and North Americans in general. He said that after they see a movie which they don't particularly like, Canadians say 'It was different'. What does that mean? It's good or bad? Would you recommend it? He compared it to him asking his daughter if she's pregnant and she'd answer "just a little bit".
You get the idea. The Canadians don't want and don't seem to care to impose their point of view. I believe that's healthy. But not that much fun.
What's being yourself, boring or not? I have a good friend in Romania who's fascinated about how fake people can be. He calls the few ones that he likes 'authentic'. The idea is that a lot of people in Bucharest (we are talking about the nouveau riche, the ones that made some money quickly, don't value it and generally don't know how to spend it). When I read the pharagraph that this bit starts with, I was expecting to say 'proving to others', because that's how my mind is set now, because of the very little authentic people.
Strip them off their Versace and Chanel uniforms and a lot of people in Bucharest have little left. I guess that's Eurotrash at its best. Don't think now that all people here are like that. But as political corectness invented by North Americans give me the right, I can say pretty much anything I wish about Romanians. Also about Canadians.. But as time will pass, that will fade away. Probably I'll feel less and less Canadian as time passes. Nonetheless, Canada will stay in my heart forever. I'll try to promote humilty at least as a notion. And because of that, I'll try to prove to myself all things that I am, introvert or not, before proving anything to others. I hope I succeed.
