This is the first time in Germany in December for me since 2012. For good reasons, I always come between May and August. Northern German weather is generally not amusing this time of the year.
That also means that I missed some very serious events happening around these months. One dates back 9 years, the other only 1 year. I noticed them back in the days, through news, but living in Ecuador creates the same distance to Terror in Germany as living in Germany to drug wars on the Ecuadorian Coast. Or hunger. Or anything that a industrialized country only encounters as phenomena, not the normal.
Saturday, we went to an Christmas Fair-like event in my home city, Plön (freaking gorgeous, look it up, it's way too beautiful with the castle and inner city and the lakes and the churches and...). First impression - security at the beginning of the "Verkehrsberuhigte Zone", a restricted traffic zone. Okay, that's new to me, but understandable. 200m further towards the event, a black van blocking the road. I honestly thought they were dilletantishly trying to park backwards into the alley they were blocking. You can see them in this picture, making space for a FD-truck.
Another 20m, these sand sacks. Big and bulky. The metal sticks are always there. There's no other way to get a vehicle to speed up and get into the zone from that side, too many buildings around. Gorgeous buildings, I'm so full of nostalgia these days, even the Sparkasse (savings bank, on the right) building looks precious. It's not, it's bricks. But in comparison to Ecuadorian cement blocks without any finishing but the front (barely, and yes, not only a metaphor, but a lifestyle), I guess everything that is completed on all sides is a treat for the eyes.
Security makes a lot of money here. Good business. Eventually, the terror will find new ways to claim victims, and move on to those. So will security. Chasing the tail. Never treating the cause, only the symptoms. The roots are in how our society is changing, destroying communal structure, promoting fracturation, rewarding individualism. We are not individualistic animals. That's not how we got to where we are.
But community takes effort, and effort is not en vogue anymore. And it will be even less in the future. Everything will be easier, and with that, everything will be worth less. What's worse is that people's appreciation for effort is fading, too. Real effort I mean, not the participation trophies and pizza slices handed out to superficially motivate.
Why do you put so much work into that?
AI could do it so much quicker! Yes, sure, but that defeats the purpose. In a world of replica, where "authenticity" has become a hollow word, a platitude, a cry for attention, a world where it's so easy to copy and paste, every act of effort feels like a little rebellion. Employing people, not machines, feels like John Connor.
I'm happy that it's still possible for me. Eventually, the script is going to flip in Ecuador, too, and the material will be cheaper than the labor. Until then, my little business gives my workers a structure. We're different, we discuss many things, but over the years of doing so I can say that many radical standpoints have been softened. That's what community can do, if people choose the effort to maintain it. If they appreciate the value that community has.
Until then, sandbags and security. One thing that is very differently, culturally, is the effect of rules. In Germany, it usually takes more time to establish them, but once they're there, it's settled and everybody has to comply. In Ecuador, they're often hastily copied from another country, without any adaption to the culture, then presented when half baked, enforced for around three months and then everyone has forgotten about them. Sandbags and security in Ecuador? Only the first three months after something happened.
The event was great. Many businesses and social organizations participated, and it did feel great to see the parts of the community thriving (very few immigrants and people of color there), coming together and displaying their work. Lily got some reading, waffles, and a movie in the local cinema (which hasn't changed since I worked there 20 years ago).
It was a very pleasant day. But there's always something to think about. I've never encountered that level of security at a public Christmas event. It feels weird.
Have you had experiences like that? Coming back to something after a long time, and though it is still very much the same, there are things that are just completely different and occupy your mind?
Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI, as well as read your own experience and point of view, I love to learn!