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I was there for a whole year, in a scientific base of my country. Being a controlled environment, I couldn't relate much with the items, except for > 10. Re-en

I was there for a whole year, in a scientific base of my country. Being a controlled environment, I couldn't relate much with the items, except for > 10. Re-entry. > There is often a huge sense of isolation and disconnect when you come back to everyday life. For so long, you have been out in the wilderness and singularly concerned with survival and mileage, so when you get back to the real world and people talk about their jobs, or what they did at the weekend, it all feels foreign. You must remember that people have their own lives and their own interests. Just because you like Antarctica and polar expeditions, it doesn't mean anyone else should give a damn about you or what you did. It was hard to come back to the real life...

telesilla 8y ago
That applies to most things that take an extreme amount of effort: most don't have the opportunity (or make it) to travel far from where they come from. As an intrepid traveller myself, I found that it doesn't really matter when you are interacting with people you like: everyone interesting travels somewhere in their mind, if not the world, and has stories to tell. But yeah reading this article I'm thinking, I HOPE I never have to worry about frostbite. Kudos to the author.
killjoywashere 8y ago
Re-entry is definitely a huge part of military deployments as well. There's this overwhelming certainty that these people just don't have their priorities straight.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  I’ve been around the world enough to see some extreme poverty - come back and friends are complaining about the generally harmless hobos downtown :/ I think it’s perspective of just getting away from what you’re used to. Re-entry isn’t the issue, it thats that it your new awareness can’t be shared with people who haven’t left.
  - csydas 8y ago
    This also happens heavily with repatriation for any unexpected reason. I'm trying to find the document on it, but there are pretty serious studies about re-entering society after a major cultural shift, with many of the difficulties relating to difficulty connecting with the regular population in regards to the experiences you had abroad since most lack the frame of reference. The unexpected part of it just is a shock to your system and it can take months before you acclimate back to your native environment just due to all the strange expectations one has. I was forcibly repatriated due to a visa issue a few years ago, and I feel into a deep depression as a result. I was not a pleasant person, and I couldn't figure out why I was so miserable. It never occurred to me that, after having traveled and worked across the globe, that the simple fact of an unexpected trip home would be the source of a huge wave of depression. I definitely burnt a few bridges as a result of this, most of which I don't think I can repair. The State Department has a very good page on this, dubbing it "Reverse Culture Shock" [1] I remember reading over this page and being amazed as to how succinctly what I was experiencing had been put into words, and it hit me very hard, especially since overall I felt I had acclimated well to life abroad in a non-English speaking country. Having all of that hard work just suddenly stripped away and being forced back into a place that no longer felt like a home for me was very hard, and it weighs heavily on me even today. That lack of connection between people is incredibly devastating, and the GP post about re-entry is quite true, in my experience. [1] - https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm
  - qume 8y ago
    There is another thread on HN right now regarding working at Amazon. There is a poor soul who is literally suicidal because he can't get into tier 1 tech companies, only tier two like Amazon where he only earns $150k. I have also traveled and lived in third world countries and I agree with you the issue is that one can't share perspective gained from the experience very effectively. It would be great to be able to share with that kid some of the perspective learned traveling and meeting people living in poverty. It could mean the difference between life and death, but as you say it's very difficult to share that awareness.
rjsw 8y ago
People from the Shackleton expedition went straight to the WWI trenches after returning from Antarctica.
- qume 8y ago
  And many of them died in the war. After IMHO the most extreme adventure a bunch of men have ever undertaken, where not a single man died. This book [0] is one of the most astonishing I have ever read. Anyone reading this grab a copy, you won't regret it. It's quite a unique story in all human history, and superbly told. [0] http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Shackletons-Boat-Journey/ http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Shackletons-Boat-Journey/

telesilla 8y ago

That applies to most things that take an extreme amount of effort: most don't have the opportunity (or make it) to travel far from where they come from. As an intrepid traveller myself, I found that it doesn't really matter when you are interacting with people you like: everyone interesting travels somewhere in their mind, if not the world, and has stories to tell. But yeah reading this article I'm thinking, I HOPE I never have to worry about frostbite. Kudos to the author.

killjoywashere 8y ago

Re-entry is definitely a huge part of military deployments as well. There's this overwhelming certainty that these people just don't have their priorities straight.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
I’ve been around the world enough to see some extreme poverty - come back and friends are complaining about the generally harmless hobos downtown :/ I think it’s perspective of just getting away from what you’re used to. Re-entry isn’t the issue, it thats that it your new awareness can’t be shared with people who haven’t left.
- csydas 8y ago
  This also happens heavily with repatriation for any unexpected reason. I'm trying to find the document on it, but there are pretty serious studies about re-entering society after a major cultural shift, with many of the difficulties relating to difficulty connecting with the regular population in regards to the experiences you had abroad since most lack the frame of reference. The unexpected part of it just is a shock to your system and it can take months before you acclimate back to your native environment just due to all the strange expectations one has. I was forcibly repatriated due to a visa issue a few years ago, and I feel into a deep depression as a result. I was not a pleasant person, and I couldn't figure out why I was so miserable. It never occurred to me that, after having traveled and worked across the globe, that the simple fact of an unexpected trip home would be the source of a huge wave of depression. I definitely burnt a few bridges as a result of this, most of which I don't think I can repair. The State Department has a very good page on this, dubbing it "Reverse Culture Shock" [1] I remember reading over this page and being amazed as to how succinctly what I was experiencing had been put into words, and it hit me very hard, especially since overall I felt I had acclimated well to life abroad in a non-English speaking country. Having all of that hard work just suddenly stripped away and being forced back into a place that no longer felt like a home for me was very hard, and it weighs heavily on me even today. That lack of connection between people is incredibly devastating, and the GP post about re-entry is quite true, in my experience. [1] - https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm
- qume 8y ago
  There is another thread on HN right now regarding working at Amazon. There is a poor soul who is literally suicidal because he can't get into tier 1 tech companies, only tier two like Amazon where he only earns $150k. I have also traveled and lived in third world countries and I agree with you the issue is that one can't share perspective gained from the experience very effectively. It would be great to be able to share with that kid some of the perspective learned traveling and meeting people living in poverty. It could mean the difference between life and death, but as you say it's very difficult to share that awareness.

rjsw 8y ago

People from the Shackleton expedition went straight to the WWI trenches after returning from Antarctica.

qume 8y ago
And many of them died in the war. After IMHO the most extreme adventure a bunch of men have ever undertaken, where not a single man died. This book [0] is one of the most astonishing I have ever read. Anyone reading this grab a copy, you won't regret it. It's quite a unique story in all human history, and superbly told. [0] http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Shackletons-Boat-Journey/ http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Shackletons-Boat-Journey/