Alemannia
Don’t know how to start this. Anyway.
I come from a South-American “developing” country (you can call it “Third World” country, I don’t mind).
It’s a poor country. With millions of people who don’t have anything to eat. And even if they had, they wouldn’t be able to eat it, for a lot of people don’t have any teeth either. A lot of people who can’t read or write. A lot of social injustice.
Yet most of the people who live there are happy. In spite of being poor. In spite of having little to eat. In spite of having shitty health care. We’re known to be happy people. In spite of all the difficulties.
Germany, on the other hand, is a rich country. A beautiful and rich country. Germany has recovered from 2 devastating wars. The USA gave a little hand with the Marshall Plan, but the point is: the people here have good living conditions. Poverty has increased a little over the past years, but everything still works fine: health care, school system, public security etc. There is little corruption within the government. Little violence rates with guns. People don’t starve to death and the government even gives money to the unemployed. Then I ask myself:
Why are the people here so sad?
They have everything to live a happy, fulfilled life.
Yet Germans are sad and always worried.
That’s the main difference between my country and here:
There the people are happy for no reason.
Here the people are unhappy for no reason.
And I ask myself: why is that?
The answer: Germans have poor human relationships.
People don’t know how to relate with each other in a healthy way. In a way that allows them to be happy. In a friendly, lovely way.
Teenagers / young adults leave their parents home very early. The parents don’t seem to give a shit to their children, so the children learn not to give a shit to their parents either.
I know people who visit their parents and family no more than once a year. And rarely call.
People here usually live alone. And when they feel lonely they buy a dog and start talking to the dog as if the dog was human.
Wait a minute: why don’t they talk to humans instead? I don’t know.
But a lot of people talk to dogs and cats. Not in that healthy way “normal” people do. They have existentialist discussions with their pets. Their only friends.
Germany is the place with the biggest number of rest homes in the planet, I guess. When someone gets old you just leave him/her there in order to wait for death to arrive. No calls, no visits.
Germany is a place where people die and no one notices. Until the hall starts to stink and a neighbor calls the police. They find people who have been dead for weeks. Lonely people. People who don’t get any phone calls. People who rarely listen to the sentence “I miss you”.
Why is that?
Why do people “relate” to each other in such a weird way?
Or why don’t people relate to each other at all?
Why is everybody so closed at heart?
Why do people look so serious?
Why don’t people make eye contact with you?
Are they afraid of something?
For Christ’s sake, they’re humans too!!!
They must have the same feelings you and I do have and share. Yet they don’t share. Anything. They live a sad and lonely life and die alone. Until the firemen come.
Is it a lack of emotional intelligence?
Don’t these people know they need other people to be happy?
We all need family, friends, lovers and pets.
A lot of people here have no friends. No family. Sometimes they only talk to the cashier at the supermarket and the bartender from the Stammkneipe. Where they usually drink alone.
Am I the only one who misses healthy social contact here?
Am I the only one who’s frustrated?
Am I the only one who has the balls to say it?
Does it also happen in other European countries as well? I have no idea. I only know Germany. In fact, I only know Berlin. A place where strangers look at you with distaste. You’re an enemy in potential.
A place where racism is unnecessary because everybody hates each other.
A place full of self-centered individualists who pretend to be happy but fill their asses with antidepressants.
Where is the bonding between humans?
Shouldn’t we live in a society, in a community?
‘Cause all I see out there is walking islands.
Lonely islands.
Sad islands.
Peolpe with 1000 connections via web but no one to give a hug.
This is so fucking sad.
And I get angry and frustrared yet I never give up.
Never.
I always do my best and try to spread the love. A smile. Some kind words.
But sometimes I get tired.
Sometimes I just want to give up.
Or go back to my country, where people love and respect each other.
Where humans allow themselves to be humans.
Where people care and smile.
I’m tired.
Germany, I gave you my best. But this one-man-army was not enough.
I’ll simply have to quote one of my favourite books here:
“Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy.”
— Mr. Conley ( The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides)
It takes a lot of effort to wake up from the stupor we’re all in and look around and realise that there are many other things that are more important than the things we think.
