He Stole my Green Ethernet Cable
This morning, as we walked a circuitous route to EduJoy, where Ivanečka works occasionally on Saturday and Sunday mornings to early afternoons, the subject of Switzerland came up and the fact that I have no intention of ever living there. Why, you ask? Well, that is a theme for another time, so you must wait. I apologize profusely. V každém připadě, the conversation drifted to the subject of change and more specifically to the fact that her sister almost violently dislikes change. Her reaction to change seems almost visceral. She swipes and snaps and claws. Her fundamental fears take control.
Ivanečka mentioned to her that we may move to Germany in the autumn because Luki will most likely be relocating there for University and it is not his wish to initially be dropped into a situation where he must cope completely alone - without a whit of family or friend around. Now - I’ve done this sort of thing multitudinous times in my life, but I realize that certainly not many people are like me. Being in difficult situations for the sake of being in difficult situations isn’t everyone’s cup of goat bile. Yes. I realize this. But back to the “story”. Lenka (Ivanečka’s sister) doesn’t think we should move to Germany, despite Luki’s need for a bit of companionship and / or moral support at the beginning of his journey onward into life. Why, though? Well, because she is shockingly against change of any kind. Any deviation from what she perceives as the norm rattles around in her head unceasingly until she is blithering. Her life seems to be propped up by rickety legs of others’ stability. She is used to Ivanečka being in Praha. It is an unmoving point on her mental graph of the way things should be. Even if it logically makes sense for us to go to Germany to support the nephew, it knocks away one of the struts holding up her sense of stable reality.
The situation reminds me also of Christian’s current lot in life, though I must admit that Christian deserves every bit of suffering that comes to him. He stole my green ethernet cable, after all. He is surrounded also by people who, from his descriptions over the years, object to change. He is surrounded by people who are mired in routine on a small and very large scale. His ideas of his place in life in the future don’t really suit their vision of what should be. They, too, cannot cope well with change.
Another observation is that after a certain point in life (an arbitrary number), one is expected to be settled and not bop constantly about as if one were in one’s early twenties and visiting the goat patch every evening. One is expected to stay put. One is almost expected to stagnate. The social norm is to, after a certain age, sit in a single spot and accumulate “stuff” until death. Everyone should pick up their copy of Grendel now and read the chapters concerning the dragon.
‘He shook his head. “My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.”’
Well, my opinion about following a social norm is fuck um, of course, and happily Ivanečka is of the same view. Whether Lenka or Christian’s family will ever be able to understand our deviation from the norm is currently an unknown. At times, thinking about it can be slightly distressing, and probably more so for Christian than for the two of us because he is constantly swaddled within it. However, in the end, it shouldn’t be such a great concern since, after all, the Heat Death of the Universe is right around the corner.