To each his own bubble

I was talking with my friend from India the other day and in response to my inquiry of why he left India to go to college in Illinois of all places he responded, “I kind of grew up in a bubble there and wanted to get out and have a different experience.” This struck me as very interesting and gave me an instant paradigm shift. From my perspective, Illinois or anywhere in the Midwest would seem to be “in a bubble,” while anywhere in India would seem exotic and rich in culture. But of course this was coming from my limited perspective and bubble of my own. What I see within my bubble is uncharted territory for others, and vise versa. So I started thinking about bubbles. It’s an interesting analogy that people use because if you were to picture yourself literally inside of a bubble, not only would you be limited from seeing beyond the barrier, sheltered from the world around, but I imagine that the rounded edge would distort your perspectives and reflect everything around back to center on you. This would indeed offer a very limited perspective. How interesting to think that all over the world people are stuck inside of their own bubbles, some by choice and others by circumstance. A bubble can be anywhere. It limits you from expanding into the world outside. You can live in a bubble in Africa or London just as easily as the in the Great Plains of Kansas. A bubble reflects you and your world rather than allowing you to see others and the lives that they live. I’m sure there are many bubbles within bubbles, a little one around you, one around your family, another one around your community, your state/country and so forth… The more that we allow other people/things/experiences to penetrate and “burst our bubbles” the more perspectives we can gain on the world at large. Even then, perhaps the world is one big bubble of its own?