A block away from the office, I passed a sun-dried mountain man, bright blue eyes, scruffy white beard, copper skin. I offered him the change I had in my pocket. ‘How you doin’, buddy?’ He seemed surprised by my speech, and sputtered for words for a moment, before spitting out Appalachian: ‘I thank God that the Sun ain’t out today… Maybe he heard me… he heard what I just said.’ ‘Who heard you?’ ‘Maybe the Sun heard me. Yesterday I was sitting and it was so warm and he was beating on me. It was either shape up or ship out, you know?’ I nodded, and glanced down Market Street. ‘I need to get to my job.’ He nodded. ‘Good luck.’ ‘Good luck.’

There’s always a rift between the realities experienced between two people, but it’s usually small, and easy to ignore. Anthropology, due to its tradition of intercultural ethnographic research, has developed methods and theories for bridging the wider gaps between people of different cultures. But what tools can one use to humanly understand a worldview in which a humongous ball of flaming gas interacts with people on a personal level, and even has time to harass an old man?

I wonder what, if any, ethnographic research has been done, to date, among those who don’t work with our consensus sanity.

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