Aphorisms of an alienated amateur in America

Everything seems so goofy to me. The same old songs that our polarized society can just about agree on and that are therefore played up and down. The alcohol that makes the society of the others bearable and hides the differences. The feigned togetherness, which is more an expression of a lack of funds than of the will to communicate. The “Deep Clean” sign on the door, which is only hung up for appeasement. The aggressive placement and blocking of access paths with shoes. The taking of space, which does not allow individuality, by property.

The only place of refuge is where there is abundance. The free all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, the always refilled paper roll above the sink. Searching for immoderation in a place of frugality. Bright colors suggest cheerfulness in a bleak environment. The institution hostel has lost its luster.

Stairs exist since mankind builds. The staircase is a constant architectural element that has not changed much in thousands of years. The staircase is fully developed. There is no room for improvement. The staircase has experienced less innovation than the wheel. There also is not much space for innovation. The staircase consists of a stable surface that can withstand the person climbing the slope. The greater modification the staircase experienced is the metaphorical. The overcoming and the ascent of obstacles. Stairs play a central role in people's self-image. The possibility to overcome obstacles with your bodily power. A merely architectonical adjustment enables us to ascend. Stairs are perfectly adjusted to the human body, human abilities and their physical condition. It remained nearly unchanged since thousands of years. The mental development has long surpassed the physical one (,sie steht gewissermaßen auf einer anderen Stufe). The body that limits us, which is a constant in the ever-changing discourse of progress, does not need any adaptation of the environment aligned with it. The staircase manifests the tension between ascent and consistency. Without this consistency and stability of the steps, an ascent would not be possible.

The staircase therefore is a reminder to mankind of its physical limitations and at the same time a reminder not to step over itself. The ascent over the stairs grounds the person and has in the end the subliminal admonition to the people not to build a stairway to nowhere.

Nobody will care about your story. You can have dreams, you can have a good character and a good heart. You can be the sweetest peach on the tree, but some people just don’t like peaches. A lot of people are projecting their wishes and their fears on you. That is why people suddenly block you or ignore you in the dining hall. In the first week of university, I already knew that some people won’t talk to me anymore at the end of the semester. I just didn’t know who. In every society you emerge, there will be people who won’t get along with you. As long as you have a character, there will be people which dislike you. Especially when you just emerge into a society for a short time, people are not able to get to know you and judge very fast. Instead of building a profound opinion about you, they will judge you by your age, your level of English proficiency, your outlook or simply one text message. You need to know that. Don’t let this behavior discourage you or lower your opinion about yourself. 

Take rejection as a compliment. I have to admit that I always want everyone to like me. It is hard for me to understand why some people seem to hate me. But over the years I realized that I can also take rejection as a compliment. In the sense of a strong respond to your character. You built your character and stand for your values. You are not a blank space of paper everyone wants to write their opinions and stories on. Your paper is already full of your story and some people simply don’t like that. But it is the story you are writing. 

Stay kind and positive, don’t hate back, but exude calmness. Most of the people need a cool down phase to realize that they have lost a diamond in their life. And quite some people who once kicked you out of their life are coming back to you. But then it is up to you to let them back in.

Draw your self-worth from the people who are standing on the side of your path for a long time already and cheer for you. There are people which think of you more than you can imagine. There are people which see you as the shining diamond you are.

Work on yourself and focus on your story. Take the support of your loved ones as wind in your sails and write a story in which you exceed your expectations. Then everyone wants to break in the light that the diamond you cut yourself out from fans out into a variegated spectrum of colors. Take the rejection as an inspiration too. Most of the people in the world don’t think or talk about you as often as you imagine.

Nobody will care about your story, 

 

until you win.

The glass cage surrounding the art object is primarily making it to art. The “Please don’t touch” sign is an integral component of the piece of art. It disconnects the visitor from the artwork and is thereby limiting the experience of this exhibit to a merely visual one. The free play of cognitions is thereby stimulated. Especially pieces which are working with contradicting materials allude to the previous experiences of the visitor. Even though they won’t ever have the chance to physically experience the exhibit, the stimulation of their cognition is achieved and desired.

If the artwork consists for example of a stone covered in a withered and dry leaf that seems to crumble at every touch, the divergence of the previous experiences and the contrast of the durability versus the fragility is producing such contradictory Ideas that these cannot be thought together into one object.

The perforated metal cube, at whose perforations thin rubber tubes are all knotted, suggests an inner image similarly contradictory to the ideas, which unites two tactile impressions, different from each other, in one object. The tactile inexperience of the total artwork disturbs the viewer, and the physical barrier of the glass cage imprisons the tactile longing. The incomplete sensory experience leaves the viewer behind dissatisfied and occupies the sense. The experience of the artwork is outsourced to the imagination, where it is able to build new connections that makes the experience of a museum fruitful.

Every person you pass could be someone special in your life. Sometimes just small coincidences let you meet a new person, you would just have passed by in every other situation. Sometimes you want to get to know a person, but the chance never comes. You see them in the distance, looking on them like a star passing by in the firmament. In these moments you ask yourself, if you missed the chance to talk to that person and what it would have been like, if you talked. Maybe it would have been an awkward conversation which wouldn’t lead anywhere, maybe it would have been the start of a new friendship. You just don’t know, and you can just imagine about it. Sometimes you would also see someone in the subway which is just approaching. You see their face and think: “Wow, I would have really liked to talk to this person, but I will probably never see them again.” Maybe you look at each other and smile.

It also happens that you meet someone you encountered several times before and then get to talk to each other. It sort of feels like you both always waited for the situation to communicate, like you know each other before, are familiar with each other, but never got the chance to talk. You can feel this connection with the first word you exchange. You suddenly walk into each other after a class and know that now it is time.

And sometimes you want to sit on a bench and another person squeezes into it at the same time. First you feel like “this is my space, I wanted to sit here alone”, but then he hears you talking your mother tongue on the phone, and you start a meaningful refreshing conversation, realizing you have a lot in common. And suddenly the alien face is turning into a friendly smile which you would like to see again.

Under other circumstances you would have just passed each other, looking at you screen or sunken in the music of your airpods.

But this time, something magically broke the barrier. And to be fair, Americans are really good at breaking that barrier.

Everyone you see has the potential to make your day. And most likely these persons are not the ones you would pick just by the looks.

And keep in mind that you are this person to many people.

On my way back home I didn’t know what to write today. I lived through all the emotions one can have today. I was deeply touched, angry, even hateful, I laughed, I had tears in my eyes, I was euphoric, I was surprised. All the seasons in one day. I don’t want my blog to be a diary of things I experienced here in a linear way, even though I still try to figure out, what this blog will be like. But when I came back to my apartment, I found a parcel with a familiar handwriting at the foot of the staircase, which gave me a warm feeling and excitement. It was packed with sweets from my home country. And at that moment I knew I wanted to write about

Gratitude.

Even though it is tough to be abroad sometimes, away from the people you love, even in difficult phases there are things that make you smile and happy. And things you love about the country you chose to live in. And that is what I am grateful for. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be here and study here. And I am grateful to myself that I went through all the hardship and work to come here. I am also grateful for my friends and loved ones back home, who try to make me smile over the distance. I appreciate that especially. I have people who are waiting for me and are excited about my steps. I am grateful for the unexpected chats I have, that make me laugh, grateful for Auto-Correct to teach me how to correctly spell grateful (hah now I got it right!) and a lot of other small things. I am also grateful about a lot of things I am experiencing here. I want to conclude with a list of things I love about America.

I love that it is fall here, that the leaves turn yellow suddenly. I love that October is a special season here and that everything is pumpkin themed. I love that everything is orange and yellow. I love that the clerk at the museum asked me if I had a good time there and that the barista in Starbucks made me an extra large pumpkin iced tea chai latte, because it was her favorite drink. I love that my professor asked a student how the wedding, the student missed class for, was, when he was taking attendance. I love that people say: “absolutely Boss” (I got you there Ethan), or “Alright Champion” in normal conversations. Even I never know if it is irony. I love that a guy asked, “How is everyone’s day?” in the quiet elevator. And I love that people here are giving more compliments. When I walked out of the door my classmate said: “I really love your outfits, they perfectly match every day”. Thad made me smile and made my day.

Attempt of a Haiku:

Fall arrived Cracking golden leaves Pumpkin spice

I often think that I am not in America. This country has always been so far away from me, even it was just an 8-hour flight. The U.S. always appeared as a sacred land to me, even though I knew about all the trouble going on here. In a way it is shockingly normal here. Today I saw a man cutting the gras in front of the museum and I thought, this is happening in every other country too. Why isn’t it more spectacular here?

When you travel a lot around the globe, you sometimes forget where you are. The small differences in gestures and habits which seem interchangeable, remind you that you are in a foreign country, but you don’t know in which country or on which continent you are right now. Then it takes like 2 seconds for you to realize, where you are. While you are busy remembering, you sort of guess, you have a feeling where you might be. Somewhere in eastern Europe maybe? They cut gras like this person. And when your reason tells you that you are in America, it doesn’t fit to the feeling you just had. And you catch yourself asking: Isn’t everything over there more spectacular, automatized, more fancy, more patriotic?

A person from abroad has many stereotypes about the U.S. in his head. They come from the Media, movies, TV-Shows, YouTube. Often you feel as if you were living in a TV show. I caught myself smiling a lot, when I experienced something typically American. I would say to myself: It is exactly like in the movies here. And these moments happen. I never felt more American as in the Gillette-Stadium watching an NFL Game of the Patriots. In these moments you smile, shake your head and think: “These Americans”. And somehow you love it. In a way that was why you came here.

But there are also these other moments. Where everything is going the same way as in every other country on this planet. Where the garden keeper is not carrying an American flag while cutting the gras. Where you don’t feel like you are in America.

You are just feeling like you are on planet earth. And in these moments, you realize the value of all the travels and hustles you went through. All the alienization. It shapes you as a citizen of this worlds beyond the ideologies, the images, the symbols and the believes which separate more than unite.

I am a child of the world, but I hold another countries passport.

There are different phases while moving abroad. The first is the honeymoon phase. Where everything seems to be perfect, you are making a ton of new friends, everything is new and exciting. The second phase is the realization phase. It mirrors the heights of the honeymoon phase like a sinus curve. That’s the phase I am in right now. Trust me, this phase comes every time. No matter how often you stayed aboard, this phase gets you. The third phase is the normalization phase. Where your life is stabilized again.

Yesterday’s Aphorism was written out of a strong urge to vent my overwhelming emotions. I haven’t shared this with anyone, but I feel like I want to take the reader of this onto my journey through this. I don’t know what form this will have or if anyone will ever read this, or if I stop tomorrow, but I want to continue this. As a part of my journey as an alien in America.

Today was embossed by many feelings. Mostly positive ones. I realized a lifelong dream of mine and spent time with a friend. I took my fate into my hands and had a good day. Sometimes unexpected things happen. A person I met on day one reached out to me, apologizing for being so dismissive the last couple of weeks. We talked about how we feel, and it was very honest. It turned out, that we share the same feeling of being unconnected with the new country. I feel less alone. Often, when you reveal your personal hardships, someone in your close circle will reach out to you, who is going through something similar.

I Realized two things today:

Expanding and widening your horizon enlarges the surface which is touching the alien. The wider your sphere, the bigger the surface. The more you expend into the unknown.

The second thing is that everybody is going through something you don’t see. You might be more similar, than you think, united in pain.

(Originally created on October 8th 2023)

I have 23 unread messages on my phone. Most of them are from caring friends and my family. And yet, I feel alone. I just came back from a get together with my former roommate, who has found awesome new people in his flat, who are really welcoming me, and yet I feel alone. Maybe this is because of the person, which ignored me from one day to another, after having one of the best long-lasting conversations abroad so far. Maybe it is because of the people I thought I am close with, but they bought tickets to Disneyland without asking me to come along, or my fellow scholarship holders, who went to Canada without asking me to come with them. Maybe it is because of the feeling of everyone leaving my table while I am getting more food. Maybe it is because one of my closest friends abroad is suddenly dating another friend of mine.

I feel misplaced. Moving abroad is never easy. Settling abroad is never easy. And pretending not to care, because I will just stay 3 more months is also not easy. I am afraid of rejection, and I am afraid of people leaving my life. And yet I am not doing enough to keep them. I want everyone to like me, even though I read the saying about the cherry… You know about you might be the sweetest peach on the tree, but some people don’t like peaches… bla bla. Do peaches even grow on trees?

Moving abroad is hard. It is supposed to be constant excitement. It is supposed to be the best time of your life. Exchange semesters sound like parties, sex and fun. A lot of acquaintances, you won’t ever see again instead of in the story feed of your Instagram. The stories you just see when you scroll to the very end and feel, oh yeah, this person was in my life once. Moving abroad are the pretty pictures, the sun on your belly and a ton of opportunities every day.

Covid took away the three years I am too old now. I don’t connect to the people around me and the best year of my life was postponed to an age I don’t enjoy it anymore. I grew out of the waiting for the realization of my teenage dreams.

I feel misplaced, too old, not fun enough, not connecting. People come and go into my life, leaving a footprint to my soul they didn’t realize to leave behind and continue to trample along their path. I want to meet new people, but I am also tired of it. I want to connect, but not for every price. It is hard to read the caring messages from back home when you are so miserable in the place you are right now. As if the positive messages are virtual, but the real world doesn’t give a dime about you.

It is a hard feeling to describe sometimes. Moving abroad, into a new environment, where people talk to you with their airpods on, is not only an adventure. Its alienation and homecoming. Home to a self you sometimes don’t feel comfortable with. Hiding behind a cold shell you want someone to break through. I whish someone would just look up from their screen and see this soul longing for something to hold on. I wish I didn’t need to hide behind my distanced appearance I just put on, because I feel nobody wants me too close.

But there are glimpses of light. Thank you, kid in the dining common 2, who passed by and told me “I like your trench”. You made me smile, when I wanted to cry. It was something honest I needed in that moment.

And tomorrow I will respond my grandfather and the 22 other people caring about me. I promise.

(Originally created on October 7th 2023)