I’m reading a book by Sartre. I don’t really know why, as it’s neither well written nor an interesting story. It seems like someone trying to form a story around philosophy. I’d prefer Camus. But my mom had that book lying around, so I thought I’d give it a try, as it’s in German.
While the story is not that fascinating, there are some short passages that call my attention from time to time. One of them I read today, about realities in a way. It’s a side not about a well-dressed man who walks up to a food stand, checks out the cold meats and just takes a slice to eat it, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The stand owner got angry, the police took the man who was remarkably surprised. Sartre’s answer to why he took the meat?
[…], he must have felt free.
I don’t agree with that entirely. We don’t know more about that man, about why he did so, where he comes from. Just that he was surprised when he was taken away. In his reality, it must’ve been absolutely fine and not bad at all to take food when you’re hungry (or when you have the munchies or whatever, again, we don’t know more).
And it could’ve been.
Many countries have rulings that don’t punish stealing small amounts of food for survival as long as no harm is done to person or property. But if that was the case, the man was not free at all. Having to steal for survival is not freedom in any way, it’s quite the prison if you think about it, as limits you from everything else.
Free of values?
The other theory would be that the man was regarding it as absolutely normal to take the food when you’re hungry. In his reality, according to his principles and values, it was absolutely fine. But just having values is not total freedom, as we’re tied to them. Only if we hadn’t any values, being animals, we could act free. But even then, there are instincts that lead us.
There’s always something.
And that’s fine. I’m not a fan of unconditional freedom, anyway, but of a healthy balance between freedom and responsibilities. And even if that man was from a different culture, a different circle where other values are promoted and other laws rule, he still made the mistake that many travelers and expat make.
Assuming that their values are universal.
It took me a while to get used to that. I had much to criticize, still have, about how things are done here. With time, I realized that all that wasn’t part of the dichotomy of “good” and “evil”, but rather on a spectrum of importance. The same actions are considered evil here as in Germany, but given a different importance.
And I must adapt.
I chose to be here. I wasn’t abducted and dropped here, I had reasons to come here. I can still live the way I want to, but I’m constrained by the rules of this country. Not so much by it’s legal system (the legal system here did not grow out of society, but was copied), but by it’s culture and the inherent limitations. As well as the freedom that comes with that.
Can’t get only the perks.
It’s also the downside that has to be embraced when taking advantage of the privilege to be able to choose one’s home country. Some people only want the perks. And they’re easy to spot as they constantly complain, and take offense in whatever is against their perceived “right and wrong”, showing off that arrogance of someone who is not able to see the other as the other, but so insecure that they need everyone to be like them.
No happiness in that.
I’m not assimilated. I hold my values dear and will not sway from them. But I’ve become more patient with other people’s realities. I’ve learned to take them into account, to see them as valid or at least as “real for them” even when it’s really out there. But honestly, it’s not over. It’s a process.
I’m still learning.
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