Life with no corners

I had lunch today with a lovely couple who had worked as medical doctors in Zambia several years ago.


I learnt one interesting fact from them today. In the native language of the Zambian people they worked with there was no word for a corner. The word corner didn't exist. They thought in natural curves and flows. They lived in round huts and had no corners. The language had been adapted after the influence of western society and technology had introduced into their world straight lines and boxes, cubes and corners. And so their language adopted the English word "corner" into it.


It must be strange living in a world with no corners. Where shapes are formed naturally and are smoothed by time to be best suited for their purpose.


It must be stranger still to not have the philosophical concept of hiding in your own corner - defending your corner - if you could not be backed into a corner with the associated connotations of foul play. If you could not corner someone. You could not hide in a corner!


I think I would like a world without corners!