Arkansas and Family

Traveling throughot Arkansas, I've noticed several things.

1. People here are friendly, polite, Christian, patriotic, and "earthly". (Earthly as in down to earth, easy to relate to, talkative, not "green friendly" though -they don't recycle).

2. The weather here is insane. They have Tornado alarm practice on Wednesday afternoons just to make sure the system is ready to go in case anything should happen. It doesn't rain here -buckets of water dump down from the sky. There's wind, lightening, and thunder -the sky holds nothing back. It's frightening.

3. They eat chicken and beef like crazy. I miss my avos...

4. They're pretty laid back and chill. They keep things simple.

It's interesting. I'd say people here are more open-minded then they are stereotyped to be, but less open-minded than people in California in general. Then again, maybe generalizations are kind of pointless.

I will say that something I experienced/learned from at the Wealthbowl in Palm Springs is that there are a lot of people who still uphold and speak to morals and their faith in God. It was amazing to see wealthy individual after individual speak of the strength of their marriage and how it requires real work and partnership. They also spoke openly about their Christianity. Initially they tried to be "politically correct", but then they stopped beating around the bush and just started mentioning God right out.

It wasn't even these things that amazed me, it was the positivity and the compassionate message a lot of these people adhered themselves to. The way they spoke, they made Kim Kardashian and all the "popular celebrities" out there seem like a joke. They made a parody of reality stars. I always hear from the internet and media about the same types of people over and over and all the sex scandals and cheating and drinking and partying they do -and it was just nice to know there were a sane group of people who shared some of the same views.

When you're surrounded by so many faces speaking the opposite message, you feel like the odd person out. But in this place, I felt like it was safe to share my beliefs because they were shared beliefs. I didn't talk much about religion there, but I did talk with my friends I was with about the greater virtues and messages I'd gotten from the speeches those couple days.

Here, in Arkansas, I feel very similarly. The respect people here have for strangers and one another -they really take others into consideration. They don't avoid and ignore people in a constant state of obliviousness. Thy really take the time to connect and they aren't afraid to speak to people they don't know. They acknowledge the people around them and more importantly they acknowledge their human and spiritual connection they have with everyone. It's nice. I don't get this vibe in California. Strangers there just seems more selfish on some level. We are raised to believe everyone we don't know is out to get us. Here they are raised to believe we are all together in the same boat and we should share the journey together.