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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

There's so much emptiness here!

Coming from a country that's just a little bigger than the state of Maryland, but with more than three times as many inhabitants, I am not used to seeing a lot of empty land. Wherever you are in my homecountry, you're usually just a short car (or bicycle!) ride away from the nearest supermarket. However, here in the States I am always astounded by the amount of emptiness, for example when we were driving through Wyoming on our way back from Yellowstone and Grand Teton.



 Look at that, there's just NOTHING there! It always gives me a bit of reverse claustrophobia. Is there a word for that?
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5 comments:

  1. Dr BeccaAugust 28, 2013 at 8:17 AM

    Agoraphobia is a fear of open spaces, and I totally feel you. I've only been to the non-city parts of the western US a handful of times, but am always blown away by the vastness of it all.

    Hope you had a great vacation!

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    1. InBabyAttachModeAugust 28, 2013 at 8:19 AM

      It was great! Hope you had a great vacation too.

      But you also call it agoraphobia if people are generally afraid to go outside their house, right? I'm wondering if there's a specific word for fear of being hours away from civilization ;-)

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  2. Dr24HoursAugust 28, 2013 at 3:45 PM

    Never go to Siberia then. Makes the US west look crowded.

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  3. challAugust 28, 2013 at 7:01 PM

    I understand the feeling, although for a long time I felt the opposite. I got offered a post doc position in your home country and thought about it a lot from the pow that it would be "less places where there is empty space where nature roams". In the end, that wasn't the reason for not moving there but it's surely fascinating to think about.

    The vastness of this was one of the big thoughts/feelings I had looking at the Canadian praerie (sp?) when looking east of Calgary where the sky opens up and no trees are seen. I then realised that I feel "at home" with a lot of (empty) forest but the open landscape scares me....where you can see for miles and miles with nothing but grass or sky :)

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  4. BeccaAugust 30, 2013 at 6:03 AM

    It's lovely. Not quite as great as looking at the ocean (or great lakes), but a far-away horizon soothes me no matter how "empty" it seems.

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