TRAPPED BY HOME
But even as I was writing the last post about the irreconcilable differences between traditional American values and progressive liberal American values I realized that I have another problem.
And it starts with my depression a few days ago which was a result of leaving the stimulation of Morocco and having to settle back into American cultural patterns. Because I realize that it isn’t just MAGA/Progressive tensions that flatten me, it all American cultural patterns from from popular culture to American independence and the isolation this brings to the lack of a personal “you” which German and French have that distinguishes between casual friends and deep friendships making Americans seem superficially freindly and shallow.
But I think the real reason that being embedded in American cultural values depresses me is not because American values are shallow or flat, but because they are the cultural constraints in which I am forced to fit, because they are my culture. I am constrained by having to fit into my own culture. If I were German or Indian or Moroccan I would be just as constrained by the confines of that culture. It is having to fit into a culture that constrains me and depresses me not the particular culture.
When I was in Morocco I was free of the contraints of American culture and certainly not constrained by Moroccan culture into which I didn’t fit at all. I had no idea about the polarization in Moroccan culture, I didn’t understand their two languages, I didn’t fit into Islam, I wasn’t used to the food. It was the total difference of Moroccan culture that freed me. I was for a little while cultureless, floating free as is in a spaceship, not tied down by anything. In Germany where I do know the language, sort of, and the difference between “du” and “sie” (you) sort of, and am familiar with the food I am less free and more constrained than in Morocco. I would feel constrained if I tried to be totally German and live there for the rest of my life.
So I realize that I feel constrained and flattened by American culture, not by the type of culture it is, but because I am an American. When I travel I am free, when I am here at home, totally American, I am trapped, or not trapped, fixed and immobilized. Other people feel odd and disoriented in another culture and greatly relieved when back in home sweet home. I feel free and alive in another culture and flattened when I realize I am home for good. And the polarization in America only intensifies this feeling of constraining American culture.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 