We’re different — no question about it.

Some people say it’s because this is an island, but it’s more than that. An island is a body of land surrounded by water. We’re a body of thinking and acting and feeling, surrounded by an outside world that thinks, acts, feels differently. That’s not just an island; it’s a culture.

AI says a culture is: “Shared beliefs, behaviors, values, and practices of a particular group...a way of life passed down through generations that shapes a group’s identity and how members interact with one another and the world around them — from food and music to a group’s specific attitudes and ways of working.”

That’s us. A whole culture just a few miles off the coast of the rest of the world. And we seem to like it that way. And when I say “we,” I’m taking some license because you really aren’t considered a “we” unless you were born here. Still, the longer you spend here, the more “we” you become. You breathe the air and share the values and live the life and pretty soon you’re not just a Vineyarder, as in a mailing address; you’re practicing Vineyardism, a member of the culture.

You know you’ve become a “we” when you prefer the personal, though imperfect art of waving the next car into an intersection over the precision of a traffic light. “You in the green Jeep, your turn, then you in the Prius, now you...” (out loud even when your windows are closed and no one can hear you.)

And when you’re off-Island, you’re offended that no one waves you in and instead, they yell and honk (and swear, even when their windows are closed.)

Sure, we all know, rationally, that rejecting the electronic invention that made traffic safer is, well, dumb. And waving people in is human, as in, “to err is human,” and as in, less safe. But the wave works for us.

The same goes for ferries. Wouldn’t a bridge make more sense? It’s only eight and a half miles from the mainland to the Island, and as bridges go, it’s not that long. The Lake Pontchartrain Bridge in Louisiana is 24 miles long and China has a 102-mile bridge. A bridge would get people to and from the Vineyard more efficiently (especially one with traffic lights at either end.)

A bridge would eliminate so many complaints: wait-lists, sold-out ferries leaving half-full, freight boats without freight, wind, rain, staff no-shows, delays, cancellations and that ugly unfinished terminal?

Great, right?

Maybe not. What would we wail and carp and moan about on Islanders Talk, or Letters to the Editor, or in the wait-list line? Ferries, in their own unreliable or reliably flawed way, work for us. In fact, if you live on Chappy, you have to take a ferry to get to the other ferry to get off-Island.

No traffic lights and few chain stores for us either (if you don’t count the chains we already have). We like local merchants who are part of the local community and fuel the local economy. Okay, we don’t have as many choices of shoes or lawn mowers or toasters or tires or shampoos or granola (scratch that, we have lots of granola choices.) But how many pairs of shoes do you need? Sneakers and non-sneakers, right? Who wants those block-long, choice-crammed, discount-priced Walmarts, Targets, Costcos and, least of all, Amazon (okay, maybe Amazon.) Why have that when, instead you can walk into a store in Oak Bluffs and have someone know your name (and you know theirs), ask if you like the coat you bought last winter, and how your kid did in her field hockey game.

Nobody at Target ever asked about the field hockey game. And the only reason you know their name is because they have to wear nametags. Yes, we like local.

But what we don’t seem to like are car dealers — we don’t have any. What we do have is independent, local auto repair shops and used car lots. The message is clear: we don’t need to buy too many new cars; we need to keep our old cars running longer. It’s good for everyone (except car dealers.) You may not see many of those fancy-shmancy Hampton-mobiles (hey, this isn’t the Hamptons), but you will see aging SUVs and rusty pickups and faded sedans, all well past their odometer limits, all still going strong. And they get more wave-ins at intersections.

But evidently, we do like skunks. We must because we don’t do much to control them. They’re not cute (even in cartoons). They stink; they dig holes in our yards; they stink; you’re not supposed to poison them; they stink; we can trap them in cages but only if we let them go so they can dig holes in someone else’s yard; they stink; they don’t have that squirrel-agility to dodge cars so they get hit and even dead, they stink.

The only thing they supposedly do in nature is provide food for other animals who clearly have few other choices. And they stink (or did I say that already?) But we leave them pretty much alone. We’re different that way.

Hey, we even protest differently. We go to the Five Corners (where, after decades of floods in every rainstorm, we have come to the conclusion that the area will flood in a rainstorm), and we hold up polite signs stating what we believe, across the street from signs proclaiming the opposite viewpoint. And then we go home. No fighting, no yelling, no throwing bricks, not even much horn-honking. Just civil disobedience. Very civil. It works for us.

And it has for a long time. Legend has it, back in the whaling days, when there was congestion in the harbor, one captain would often wave another captain’s boat in. Legend also has it, one of the ships had skunk stowaways, so they brought the bad with the good. Mostly good. We were diverse before diverse was a thing. And old-school and natural and with unlocked doors.

As for AI (Artifiical Intelligence) describing us as a culture, we knew all that long before. We have VI (Vineyard Intelligence). Sure, sometimes we get annoyed at our own inconveniences, and stubbornness, and get tired of being quirky. But mostly, we take comfort in being who we are, doing things our way, thinking the way we do. It works for us.

Would it work for the rest of the world? Would there be less road rage if we got rid of traffic signals? Would there be less anger if we cursed skunks instead of each other? Would we have less war if we just held up signs at the Five Corners? Maybe. Or maybe our way, our different way — Vineyardism — only works here, off the coast of the real world.

Who knows? But I have to end here. It’s Tuesday, the best day to find good stuff at the dump-tique which is only in West Tisbury. It’s not a chain.

Jim Dale is the author/co-author of several books including Just Show Up with Cal Ripken Jr., and We’re Better Than This with Congressman Elijah Cummings. He lives in Vineyard Haven.