The Invention of Culture by Roy Wagner

from the chapter "The Assumption of Culture"

"...this feeling is known to anthropologists as 'culture shock'. In it the local 'culture' first manifests itself to the anthropologist through his own inadequacy; against the back drop of his new surroundings it is he who has become 'visible'." (p. 7)

"Culture shock is a loss of the self through the loss of these supports."

(the anthropologist) ... "whether he knows it or not, and whether he intends it or not, his 'safe' act of making the strange familiar always makes the familiar a bit strange. And the more familiar the strange becomes, the more and more strange the familiar will appear." (p.11)

from THE ART OF SEEING by J. Krishnamurti:

"We were saying the other day how very important it is to observe. It is quite an art to which one must give a great deal of attention. We only see very partially, we never see anything completely, with the totality of our mind, or with the fullness of our heart. And unless we learn this extraordinary art, it seems to me that we shall be functioning, living, through a very small part of our mind, through a small segment of the brain. We never see anything completely, for various reasons, because we are so concerned with our own problems, or we are so conditioned, so heavily burdened with belief, with tradition, with the past, that this actually prevents us from seeing or listening. We never see a tree, we see the tree through the image that we have of it, the concept of that tree; but the concept, the knowledge, the experience, is entirely different from the actual tree....."
Madras
January 3 1968