Belonging to a culture or a community comes naturally to so many people that they are not even aware of what it truly means. Studying in the country that you were born in, traveling outside from time to time, and never really having a need to move from the system as though existing in your community leaves you with the unnoticeable sweet feeling of oneness with a society. However, if at one point of your life you try to jump into a new territory which specifically one that speaks a different language, you will find out that the jump was not as easy as you thought and that you’ll never be able to truly bridge the gap, creating a new community that is entirely your own.

You’ll end up in the gap between the territories. Your old community will never again understand you truly, nor will your new one. The communities in question will only know what their community looks like from within, but only you will know what it looks like from afar as well.

People are strange like that. National collectives never seem to realize what sets them apart from the other nations. People tend to say that their nation has the most beautiful people, that they make extraordinary hosts, or that their nation is wittier than the others. In the majority of cases, these conclusions are brought about from the internally generated suggestions, rather than thoughtful analysis. Once you get out of the community bubble and try to present an outer opinion about your society, you will be neglected, because ‘you have changed’. The newly generated ideas are a matter out of place when you try to get them into the bubble you stepped out of. So you try to appeal to the new society you moved into.

The ‘other’ society doesn’t mind the opinions you just obtained from outside of the bubble, but there comes a moment when you want to present an opinion built deep inside of you during your stay at your old territory and suddenly it seems unreasonable or not normal. Possessively holding onto the narrative of your personality you refuse to let go of some of the customs or beliefs of the previous society and move into a stage of compromise. You’ll combine the two sets of knowledge you now obtained, hold onto the knowledge you prefer from both and discard the rest. Now you feel like you can function in the both societies. You feel like you cheated the system and that no one can notice you’re an outsider in the both of the territories you try to fit in.

Then, without the warning you realize that while balancing between the two you found yourself above an abyss. And you fall.

Now, at the bottom of the abyss you realize that you’re not alone. You’re in a dried out canyon that circles around all of the world’s territories and there are people just like you down there. These people, just like you, were not held by the place and didn’t settle for the bubble. They are the explorers, the wonderers who know how you feel. And there it is, did you just find extraordinary people that you can build a new community with?

You'll feel like you did, until you remember that all of these people fell in the gap of different cultures. They are the outsiders, but the outsiders who hold the knowledge systems of some faraway places and with which you'll again have to find some compromises. So you move on. A place doesn't hold you anymore. You become hungry for new places, experiences, languages, people and stories, but most of all you're hungry for power. You want to change people, to push them over the cliffs of their comfort zones and make them think from different perspectives. At that moment you feel like you are experienced and cultured and a person who is in control of who they are and you feel like there is nothing in the world you can't do. What happens after that? Well I guess that our paths part here. Some keep on searching for a society that will fit their personality. Some start running back into their old communities hoping to rebuild what they left behind. Some decide never to settle, while some live for the greater cause.

The people from the gap are special, they are extraordinary and interesting. However, every once in a while they lay unsettled in their beds wishing to be ordinary. Wishing to become the part of the gray mass and feel the sweet belonging to the community- the exquisite feeling they once ran away from.