I recently listened to a podcast by Horia-Roman Patapievici who said that he used to spend his holidays in the countryside.
That person said something similar to: “as a child, I used to spend all of my vacations in the countryside”. (“la țară”, “țăran de vacanță”)
I used to do so myself – I’ve spent a lot of my vacations at my grandparents, and quite some time with things like gardens, animals, woods, things like that.
But from time to time I used to meet some people who spent their time in the countryside – there were deep differences between us.
While education and opportunities gave me some advantages in some fields, there were some others that I lacked – the ability to do the hard work, resilience, strength, agility.
The differences were on the personal level, also. I can’t quite put my finger on this, but people had a different way of looking at life, at integrating within the community, on choosing the right path, on living spirituality.