Greetings

I take my turn manning the till in the charity shop where I work.  Standing behind the counter gives plenty of time for reflection and for observing.  I've noticed the different ways people come into the shop.  Some will say a cheery "hello" or "good morning", others will smile and look away, while some never glance in my direction at all.  The difference of approach interests me.

Contrast that with France where a customer would almost without fail greet the shop assistant, and very likely all the other customers in the shop too.  A murmured "Bonjour messieurs-dames" as they come in the door is normally all it amounts to, especially if there are several people around.  Even in a restaurant, customers will greet the assembled company, but probably not in Paris.

I think it could be a matter of public versus private space.  If you're walking down a high street, you don't think to greet everyone unless they happen to be someone you know.  If you're walking your dog in a woods, though, and come across another person, I can't imagine you wouldn't greet them.  But then there is the intermediate zone.  Walking along the sea front yesterday, some greeted, some didn't.

I find the whole thing intriguing, part cultural, part psychological.   Who greets, where and and when?

Oh, and PS, in case it isn't  immediately obvious, I'm talking from the UK.  England, south-east corner, to be precise.

Curiosity killed the cat.

A parcel arrived from Amazon the other day, not for me.  It was still in the same position a day later.  There was, I was told, no reason to open it because the contents were the books that had been ordered.

I can't do that.  I can't leave a parcel or letter unopened.  I was self appointed postwoman for our department at work just in case there was something important (or, let's be honest, just interesting) lurking the bundle which could otherwise be left for hours.  I can't let a telephone ring, even if I'm on the point leaving the house.  I must find out what it is.  This curiosity of mine has been useful too - it worked well in IT because I couldn't rest until I had found the root of a problem.  I see or hear something and wonder, "Why is that?".

According to psychologists, curiosity is defined as a need, thirst or desire for knowledge.  A cat wants to know what made that sound or caused that movement but humans can be curious about things that may not even exist (and many will make a decision on little or no evidence - also known as jumping to a conclusion).  These show two different types of curiosity behaviour - one is exploratory and the other could be called thinking.  There's another division between broad and deep curiosity. Some people want to know about all sorts of different things while others to know as much as they can find about a single topic and will keep on delving more and more deeply.

If something odd happens, or a difference shows up, some people will notice and accept it as just that, others won't notice at all, but the curious will want to know why.  I've seen curiosity described as being on the border between order and chaos, so you could think of it as an attempt to maintain a sense of order, to explain away the potential chaos.

Roget's Thesaurus says that the absence of curiosity is boredom.  I don't think I'll ever be bored.

P.S. no. 1
1885, Sir Francis Galton wrote a paper called “The Measurement of Fidget.” [Another good detour to explore here: he was the cousin of Charles Darwin and an early fingerprint specialist]. He noted that in an audience, people will fidget about once a minute.  The ones who are interested in the subject will fidget less often than those who are bored, and they will get their fidgeting over quickly. 

P.S. no. 2
Curiosity killed the cat
Information made him fat.
That was the rhyme I was told as a child, I suspect to keep me out of mischief.  Since looking up one or two things for this post, I've learnt another ending: "satisfaction brought him back" which I much prefer.

P.S. no. 3
I've read that curiosity is a predictor of happiness.  I don't know whether that's true or scientifically investigated, but I'm happy to hear it. :)

Hurt feelings

Not true. A different type of hurt undoubtedly, but it certainly can hurt. Researchers in psychology have found that the pain from hurt feelings last far longer than physical pain. They think the ability we have developed as human beings to work in groups and live in communities also encourages us to relive and suffer from social pain.

The power of words is immense. They don't have to be angry words, the words that hurt. They can be entirely innocent but still sear through to pierce your innermost being like nothing else will. Sometimes it may not be words but the absence of words, or even something as simple as just not noticing.

What do you do when someone hurts your feelings without meaning to? Do you say something or do you bottle it up inside? Pretend nothing happened? Perhaps nothing did happen. Is it just a case of being over-sensitive?

As far as I can tell, there is no easy answer. If you do explain that you were hurt you risk either upsetting or annoying the other person. If you don't, the pain comes back again and again. You need to find a middle way of explaining what hurt, and why, without laying any blame, of showing why you feel the way you do.