There are people who see things in white and black, for whom something is only true if it is 100% true. If you can find a counterexample, the statement in question is not true, and that’s it. I am definitely not one of them. Not even in math. If you find a counterexample, you just move the goalposts to dribble around that issue. Actually, much of the understanding one gains comes from such changes of the terms to keep a true statement true. Poincaré changed his original conjecture after he found a homology sphere.

Anyways, there are really very few things I believe are absolutely true or false. Can’t think of anything now, besides the fact that at some point we will all be pushing the daisies (true) and that if I train hard enough I could end up moving my ears so fast that I could fly (false). Now, that does not mean that I put everything in some third, similarly rigid category. What is more realistic is that I see it all in fuzzy shadings of grey, which in fact keep changing all the time. The shading changes because one gets new facts, or because the background changes, or because the matter in question might suddenly require a higher degree of certitude. For example, if Real Madrid is attacking and a Madrid player falls, then exquisitely little is needed for me to recognize as an evident truth that there was a penalty. If on the other hand the action is happening in Madrid’s penalty area, then a missing limb might be enough to suggest that there had been a fault, but in all honesty, it might depend on which one. At the same time, I often use the words “true” and “false” without qualifiers. They might sound like absolutes, but in my mind they mean that under the evidently reasonable provisos that I have in my mind at that precise time, the statement I believe to be true (or false) has enough truth in it to be on the lighter (darker) side of the ledger.

Now, I gave that rant about truth and falsehood because I am going to talk about “the Spanish,” “the French,” or “the Americans,” and I want it to be clear that I am not speaking about “all Spanish without exception.” I mean, I know that Volkspsychologie is rubbish psychology, and that it is almost sure that there are socially awkward Italian dorks. At the same time, it is also a fact that I know a lot of Italians—even among the risk population—and have never met a dork among them. So, I am willing to defend that the statement “there are no Italian dorks” reflects truth.

Why do I want to write about “the Spanish” and so on? Because I am always kind of amazed by how much borders in Europe matter, how different people are in different places. For Spanish people, it is hard to say “no” when somebody asks for something—you say “yes, sure, but…” and then indicate what inconveniences saying “yes” has for you, expecting the one asking to understand the subtext and take away their request. Similarly, in Spain you generously offer the moon, but you expect the other person to know that the offer is real, that it means something, but that if they want to cash in on it at a later time, they have to ask you in a way that leaves you a clean way out. It does not mean that Spanish people are not truthful in their generosity, just that there is a code, and that one has to understand what is being said. On the other hand, in Germany people deny a request with all naturalness, with the expectation that afterwards there are going to be no bad feelings. If you offer to a German that you can take care of their cats anytime they are away, they will eventually pass by and give you the key, telling you for how long they are gone. It is not that Germans are less polite or considerate than Spanish people. There are just different codes. Still, it kind of makes sense to say that Germans are direct to the point of often seeming to be rude, and that Spanish people are more fickle and unreliable. Volkspsychologie is rubbish psychology, and there are definitely shy, soft, and gentle Germans, and there are super responsible and reliable Spaniards, but the stereotypes have some truth in them.

It is a funny question why this is so. I mean, nobody marginally decent believes that it is genetic or something. I guess that it matters what you see at home, but seeing how the verb “ser” is much more of a savage in Spanish than in French, I am more and more convinced that what really matters is language and school. I mean, you cross the border from Irun to Hendaye, you go from a plaza to a place, and you notice an amazing change in the way people interact and kids play. And both squares are less than 4 km apart, and people go all the time over the border to work or shop. The only real difference I can see is language and school. Here is an example of the subtle ways in which school might influence one’s overall way of acting. Apparently, in Italian schools, oral exams play a large role, and as I was told some time ago, this means that Italian students are trained to continuously read what the teacher expresses with their body language, and to accordingly change swiftly and flexibly their points of view. He gave the following example:

Teacher: Is the Earth round or flat? Student: It is flat. At this point the student recognizes some worrisome signs in the face of the teacher, and so he pivots: Student: …or at least this is what people used to think before they learned that it is actually round.

That student learned how to deal with exams, but is also going to use their skills in life.

Anyways, I was in Italy in September and December and am now in Helsinki. I don’t know about differences between Finnish and Italian schools, but man, are both languages different, starting with the amount they are actually used. I mean, Finland is the perfect place for a chatty, ranting Spaniard like me. In my natural habitat, let’s say when my sister is around, I have a hard time getting a word in edgewise. Here I don’t have this problem. Maybe it is an urban myth, but I think—or thought, because I don’t find a quote—that it was Madame de Staël who said that differences between French and Germans are largely to be explained because in German you cannot interrupt the speaker if you want to know what they are saying. Finns definitely don’t interrupt anybody. In fact, if one wanted to be a bit edgy, one would say that they are so afraid of interrupting, that they are so quiet, that one sometimes has the urge to lift their hand and let it fall to see if they are alive… But it is not that. These people actually listen, even when there is a bunch of them together in a bar. If you come from Spain, that seems like a physical impossibility, let me tell you. And there are talkative Finns. Not my sister’s level of talkativeness, but at least talkative enough that they can credibly describe other Finns as quiet.

I often say that I have long lost the social skills needed to survive in Spain, but I guess that I feel that I could regain some of them if I spent more time there. On the other hand, I think that to survive in Italy you need to either have been trained from childhood, or to be exceptionally gifted. How else do you find your way in, say, a train station, with signs pointing in the most random directions? After a while you sort of decide to try to see if all the ways lead to the platform or to the metro or wherever you want to go. And finally one manages, but contrary to the local population who seems at ease, instinctively knowing which way to go, you feel yourself lost all the time. Not in Helsinki. You land here, and you could be blind, drunk, and high, and there is no way that you miss the right exit. There are few but clear signs. All the doors open in the direction of walking. The luggage arrives in little time. The train to the city runs every few minutes and it is trivial how to buy tickets. It is all just unfuckingbelievably perfect. All of it. The airport, public transportation, the university, everything is organized in the most effective and efficient way. A bit minimalistic, but perfect. You are never lost or disoriented. Which I think is good because it is not exactly that people are going to go Italian if you ask for directions.

How is all this order and perfect organization possible? Given the local climatic conditions, the third law of thermodynamics comes to mind. Recall that it asserts that at the lowest possible temperature the entropy of perfectly ordered systems vanishes, meaning that there is no disorder or randomness. Pointing out the frigid Helsinki temperatures (the harbor is frozen over right now) might look like a cheap shot, but the point is that what these people have achieved is actually a perfectly ordered system, with 0 entropy. And that brings us back to language. What is the most obvious way of reducing entropy in communication? First, you evidently talk in the most clear and monotone way, without fluctuations—think how somebody would be sending a call for help via radio—and Finnish sounds really monotone. Swedish has a funny up-and-down singsong which completely vanishes when Finns are speaking it. But you also see how much these people value clarity in the way they write: basically all letters seem to be doubled. I mean, my friend (imaginary friend, some Italian claimed) is called Pekka Panka who moved from Vantaa to Tuulensuuntori. Doubling the length of a signal is an evident way to reduce entropy. One pays a price in length: Faculty of Science translates to Matemaattis-Luonnontieteellinen Tiedekunta, which, if you count, includes five pairs of double letters.

Anyways, if temperature and language (and as I said, school) collude to reduce the entropy here, one should also keep in mind that there is also the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the one that says that globally entropy only grows. This means that each time these people install a door that opens to the outside or just decide to double a few more letters, entropy must be being created somewhere else. I evidently do not know where, but a transfer in Milano Centrale, not to speak of a flight to Fiumicino, might give some hints.