KDM

For the longest time I have struggled to understand why Spanish and Portuguese came to be different languages. I think I know now. The issue is that I was trying to retrofit my current standard of distance/how far something is onto a time before the internal combustion engine. I have the modern convenience to be able to have a birds-eye view of Spain and Portugal on a map and have them appear "right next to each other". In reality, these entities were far from each other by the standard of transportation of those days (foot or horse). Pictured below, Madrid and Lisbon are about 380 mi from each other by car. That's about a 6-7 hour drive. But in pre-car times, walking 380 miles would take 15 days...assuming you're walking 20 miles a day. Need I say more? People from these areas were simply not interacting with each other on any meaningful type of scale. Moral of the story: In many ways we are prisoners of our modern POV when we try to assess the past.

Phones prevent cultures from forming. They are the tiny hole in a balloon that makes it eventually deflate in 3 days. As long as someone has their phone on them, their attention never fully belongs to you. When's the last time you've done something with people for longer than an hour without touching your phone?

If you are interested in this, just ask AI how you can quickly toggle the mode on/off for when you need to use maps, take photos, look at pictures etc. I triple click my power button and I am back to Color mode.