When Mountains Make Monsters: How Geography Turns Neighbors into Nightmares
You know that uncomfortable feeling you get when you walk through an unfamiliar neighborhood and suddenly everyone looks different, sounds different, or drives different cars than you’re used to? Congratulations—you’ve just experienced thousands of years of human evolution doing exactly what it was designed to do. Geography, it turns out, has been quietly playing matchmaker between fear and strangers since we first figured out how to walk upright.
The Comfort Zone
Let’s start with the obvious: we’re comfortable with people we know well. Your family, your friends, your neighbors—the people who wave at you from their driveways and know exactly how you like your coffee. There’s a beautiful simplicity to this. We see these folks regularly, we share experiences with them, and most importantly, we can predict what they’re going to do next. When your neighbor Bob wakes you up mowing his lawn every Saturday morning at precisely 8 AM, that’s not annoying routine—that’s comforting predictability.
But here’s where it gets interesting (and slightly embarrassing for our species): the moment someone steps outside our familiar circle, our brains start getting twitchy. Different accent? Suspicious. Unfamiliar customs? Definitely up to something. Eats foods we’ve never heard of? Probably plotting world domination.
The Foreign Factor
The truth is, people who feel “foreign” to us—whether because of generational gaps, languages, social norms, or simply different life experiences—tend to make us uncomfortable. And why? Because they’re harder to read, harder to predict, and therefore (according to our ancient brain wiring) potentially more dangerous.
Think about it: when your teenage nephew starts speaking in what sounds like a completely different language (“That’s so sus, no cap, fr fr”), you’re experiencing the same basic neurological response your ancestors felt when encountering people from the next valley over. The only difference is that your ancestors didn’t have to worry about decoding TikTok slang.
The Original Travel Influencers
Historically, geography kept our world very, very small. Before cars, planes, and GPS systems that get huffy when you don’t follow their directions, most people lived and died within a few dozen miles of where they were born. Those brave (or foolish) souls who did venture into distant lands and actually made it back alive became the original travel influencers—and did they know how to tell a story.
Here’s the thing about those “fantastic” tales that returning travelers shared: they weren’t exactly presenting a balanced documentary. “I spent three pleasant weeks meeting lovely people who made excellent bread” doesn’t exactly captivate an audience around the evening fire. But “I barely escaped from a land of giants who breathe fire and eat children for breakfast”? Now that’s entertainment!
These storytellers were cherry-picking the most extreme, unusual, and frankly terrifying experiences from their journeys. They weren’t lying, necessarily—they were just emphasizing the highlights. Unfortunately, those highlights usually involved narrow escapes, strange creatures, and customs so bizarre they couldn’t possibly be trusted.
Modern Geography, Ancient Fears
Fast forward to today, and we’ve expanded our comfort zones considerably. Most of us feel reasonably at ease with people from the same country, or at least the same state. Progress! But that different accent from two states over? That foreign language being spoken at the grocery store? Our ancient alarm systems are still surprisingly sensitive.
We’ve gotten better at managing bigger geographic distances, but we’re still remarkably good at finding reasons to be suspicious of people who seem “different.” It’s as if we’ve simply adjusted the zoom level on our fear map rather than fundamentally changing how the map works.
The Story Problem
Where this gets relevant for those of us who love a good story: these geographic fears and cultural misunderstandings make fantastic material for story arcs. There’s something compelling about the mysterious stranger from a distant land, the clash of cultures, the misunderstood customs that lead to adventure and conflict.
But—and this is a crucial but—what makes for great storytelling makes for terrible decision-making in real life. The same instinct that gives us narratives about “the other” also gives us some pretty awful real-world policies and personal prejudices.
The Human Upgrade
So here’s a thought: maybe becoming “better humans” means learning to see through our own geography-induced fears. Maybe it means recognizing that the person with the unfamiliar accent is probably just as confused by our customs as we are by theirs. Maybe it means understanding that those “foreign” foods that seem so strange are just different solutions to the same basic problem of “what’s for dinner?”
Perhaps the goal isn’t to eliminate our differences—heaven knows, the world would be boring if we all ate the same food and spoke the same way. The goal might be to become more alike in the ways that actually matter: in kindness, in curiosity, in the willingness to assume good intentions until proven otherwise.
In other words, maybe we can keep our geographic diversity while breaking down the geographic barriers that turn neighbors into nightmares in our minds.
After all, the person living on the other side of the mountain is probably just as worried about what kind of strange creatures live on your side. And wouldn’t it be refreshing if, just once, both sides were right to worry—not about danger, but about how to make a good first impression?
What geographic assumptions have you caught yourself making? Have you ever been the “foreign” one in someone else’s neighborhood? Share your thoughts—after all, the best way to break down barriers is to start talking about them.