Le Spleen Baudelairien and the Habit theory

·                                             Le Spleen Baudelairien

Baudelaire, in his spleen, wrote the most powerful and inspiring poems.

His concept of spleen, exposed in les fleurs du mal, refers to a state of mind with feelings of isolation, of anxiety, sadness and despair. I can guess it is the best state of mind for good writing, as the best authors were tormented souls.

There is a theory that if you move, not travel, to another countries, you may experience the Spleen Baudelairien after a period of six weeks, more or less.

·                       The theory that it takes 66 times to develop a habit

We have been in Cairo for 6 weeks today and have spent a little less than 66 days. Nevertheless, according to both theories, we should feel down but get used to life here.

Well, in our case, I can't say that I feel the Spleen. 
I guess what helps is that this is our third host country and therefore, you do get used to other cultures and become slightly more adaptable than if you are a first time traveller. 
However, to me, the most important factor that makes me feel happy is the sense of community. The community that we have seen has been really lovely, and takes the potential spleen alerts away from me. Once again, we do keep an eye on the situation, we do reflect on the Kenyan tragedy and feel incredibly sorrowed, but I can't say that I am feeling the travelling spleen, on the contrary.

I am happy to be in Cairo, I feel we have a strong group of people at work, who care about and for each other, support each other. The young generation I teach has been extremely welcoming and has the most incredible sense of humour.

The people we have been around have lived up to our hopes of Egypt's kindness and welcoming nature, very similar to the Turkish culture, which we enjoyed so much.

The habit theory is true, in my opinion. I do wake up without wondering what the weather will be like, I do turn the air conditioning system on without questioning myself, I do walk around and gaze at the landscapes in a non judgmental way, accepting the landscapes, the way things are:  neither shocking or saddening, it is just the way it is.

Life in Cairo is NOT bad and as I watch pictures from a friend in Dubai, looking as though several modern architects have been designing each of their ideas, and built their own buildings, a 'futuristic' (let's hope not) and incoherent glass clean jungle, I do feel happy, the exact opposite of the spleen, to be here.

In Cairo, you will find the poor, the rich, the chaos, the noise, the traffic but it feels real here and that matters more to me.