Exoticizing the Familiar

Imagine experiencing some daily event. This event is completely ordinary and “normal”. Now imagine this daily event transformed in the way you understand it. By speculation that this event is not so normal, but instead a practice comprised of odd sets of rules and rituals, the ordinary now occurs as being extraordinary by virtue of said speculation. Such a change in thinking, simply put, is “exoticizing the familiar”. The continuous cycle of speculation causing social action, causing speculation, causing social action and so on, is the very definition of sociological practice. In Peter Berger’s essay “Invitation to Sociology”, this concept of exoticizing the familiar is the topic of exploration. “Things are not what they seem,” writes Berger, “Social reality turns out to have many layers of meaning. The discovery of each new layer changes the perception of the whole.” Here, the “many layers of meaning” are these ordinary events that occur every day. When a discovery is made about such event, it “changes the perception of the whole,” that is, the ordinary event has become extraordinary through speculation that this event is not longer what it seemed to be. It is like becoming a tourist at home, taking what is familiar and making it foreign and amazing.

While explaining in generalities is useful to relate a sociological concept to a wider spectrum of experiences and events, it is difficult to relate to “real life” without some sort of evidence seen in society. One such example of Berger’s topic, exoticizing the familiar, is portrayed with how our society views money. America is built on the foundation of capitalism, a system that values a monetary system that allows for trade externally with the rest of the world, as well as internally to her citizens. Naturally, money has a certain value depending on what denomination that bill or coin is. With money, I can buy a new pair of shoes, breakfast, or a haircut. This seems perfectly ordinary, buying things we want or need on a daily basis. However, when viewed from the outside in, like a Martian who has no concept of money, this practice of buying and selling seems downright odd. Think about what is actually going on in these transactions. A customer gives a small piece of paper with some writing and some pictures on it to a cashier, and in turn the cashier gives the customer a new car, for example. This small piece of paper, the dollar so to speak, is nothing but a small piece of paper! It does not represent an amount of a precious metal or a number of personal assets, but is merely a piece of paper. The fact that I can exchange my small piece of paper for a bagel is plain old bizarre. This is exactly what Berger explains in his essay; now that such a suggestion has been made, a small change has occurred in the way you understand the concept of money. Just by pointing out the quirks and oddities of such a practice, one becomes more aware of the practice itself; that is, what one lacked to notice prior. This chain of speculation to social action is precisely Berger’s argument, “things are not what they seem.”

"Is that like, looking for rocks?"

"Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) is a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure. A geocacher can place a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache's existence and location online. Anyone with a GPS unit can then try to locate the geocache." - courtesy of www.geocaching.com

It's not looking for rocks, cough... Shelly.... but rather a quite fun game of hide and seek. It brings out that pirate side in you, seeking treasure hidden in plain sight! I tried this game for the first time on Saturday with my dear friend Madeline. Not only am I hooked from a mere 3 hrs. at it, but I find myself thinking, "Ooh, that would be an excellent spot for a geocache!". But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is the story of two college girls setting out to find treasure hidden in their own back yard.

Approximately 9:30 Saturday evening, Madeline and I set out to find our first geocache. Of course it was raining, because there's no way the weather would ever cooperate regardless of what we were doing. But that didn't get us down, we just grinned and bore? beared? which is it? Whatever, you know what I'm saying. We make a quick pit stop at the QFC to buy an umbrella to shield my TomTom from the rain. By this point we're both pretty much giddy, we are real life pirates! How exciting!

Side note: neither of us have ever done this before. I have only heard of the fantastic fun this hobby is from a close friend, Gwen, who has geocached all over the place with her family.

Okay, so yeah, it's dark and rainy, but we went ahead and typed in those coordinates into my GPS. We set off down the Burke-Gilman trail towards the stadium. We were eventually lead somewhere behind Hec-Ed in a marsh. Not the ideal place to be in running shoes and without a rain jacket, but we were determined. We had the smallest little LED flashlight our roommate Brooke lent us (THANK YOU BROOKE!) but it just wasn't getting the job done. We struggled to even get to the actual point these coordinates were leading us. Our shoes were getting sucked off by the deep mud and our hands, arms, and legs stuck with thorns. After a wild goose chase around the marsh, we heard an enormous sploosh! in the adjacent lake. Madeline freaked, in turn, causing me to panic. We both hopped the guard rail and high tailed outta there!

So yes, sadly, we gave up on our first geocache. However, I am determined to find it someday. Perhaps the water levels were higher than normal and it was underwater? I figured that was why I was having so much trouble finding the exact spot TomTom was trying to lead us. Regardless, we saw some cool evidence of beaver activity!

Since this geochache was proving a harder find that anticipated, we moved on to another, near by. But of course we went the EXTREMELY LONG WAY around the entire stadium to get there. By this point the excitement was beginning to wear off, as our feet were soaked to the bone and we had our share of tree debris in our hair. But we trucked on. We found ourselves out behind the softball fields at the UW, by yet another source of water. Oh joy. I began digging around the trees near the creek with no luck except for the occasional thorn scratch and a near slip into the cold water below. We did find a weird NCAA ball in the trees. It's probably nothing special, but I wasn't about to go home completely empty handed! So that was our trophy for the night.

We headed on back to our dorm, which seemed impossibly far to travel. By this point, we're soaked to the bone, muddy, and tired. We just want to make it back in time for SNL. We start to make the hike all the way back to McMahon. For those uninformed, the walk from the softball fields to North Campus is ALL UPHILL. It was very tiring. We thought we could catch a break by taking those well hidden, but amazingly convenient escalators located under Padelford. JK! Those turn off at like six! Great, now we just had to walk up the escalator like a regular set of stairs. A lot of steep, narrow, regular stairs. Both of us were panting as we reached the top and I couldn't help but celebrate with a Rocky pose!

We didn't find our geocaches. Sad day. But we haven't given up! We are planning on embarking again this weekend in search of these elusive treasures hidden in our own backyard. I'll be sure to update with info on our travels, our successes and epic failures.

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.

Robert Service from "The Spell of the Yukon."