Strangers Among Kins
“A traveler returning to his own country after spending some time abroad obtains a fresh vision of it. He still wears his traveler’s antennae – a sensitivity to nuances of custom and attitude that helps him to adapt and make his way in strange settings.”
Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness
I have a brother who is much much younger than I am. In fact, I was practically “nursemaid” to him as a baby, and he grew up under my care until I left the family to study under a government grant. After a few years, and I was already in the government, our lives’ paths met again and, as is normative to our society, I had to help him through his education. Failing to trace the steps I took towards a comfortable career, he nevertheless made it to join the naval force of another country and dropped out of my life.
Ten years after, more or less, my government gave me a subsidized observation tour of the foster country of my brother. I remembered him and thought it my fraternal duty to see him. After some effort to trace him through that country’s defense organization, I got in touch with him. My itinerary and his assignment gave us the opportunity to meet.
We met and shared a room together for two days. I realized, however, that although we are brothers, time and distance have changed both of us. True, we shared common origins – we have the same parents, blood, and name – but we had become strangers to each other. After a brief exchange of hellos and news from home – mostly about our parents – we had nothing more to talk about. I tried to tell him about my life during the last ten or so years and he his, but I sensed that we were listening to each other like strangers who met for the first time and were sizing each other up. Then, we parted as if with finality. We have not seen each other since then.
Nothing surprising about that. After all, ten years is a long time. I can shrug that one off, but strangely disturbing is the similar estranging situation that developed between me and my maturing children. After only six months of being out of my country I was lucky to be home again, but the reality of estrangement dawned on me once more. Where before I had an almost egalitarian relationship with them – as if they are my true siblings – that homecoming did not prevent an invisible barrier in the form of civility and respect towards a parent from coming between us to set us apart. There was stilted exchange of views and notes. And soon I was left alone to ponder the perplexities of being a stranger in one’s own home.
I strongly believed I have not changed; they changed. Yet I suspect that having stayed in a foreign land immersed in a different culture had really altered me, and the subtle changes in my behavior was perceived by them. Time and distance have made us into strangers, and eroded the communality of our lives. We no longer share the familiarity of our respective milieux and are thus strangers to each other, seeking in our momentary encounter the “nuances of custom and attitude” those bits of the past that will hopefully paste together the edges of the chasm our lives have created. (The situation between husband and wife caused by separation lasts but momentarily. Their physical reunion, intensified by fantasies engendered by the enforced abstinence, rapidly re-establishes the community of their interests.)
Our country, in the concrete, is our families and friends, and we are chained to them by our memories of common experiences. Returning to our country, we take great pains to obliterate strangeness by awakening memories, such as during reunions with friends. However, once we are drained of past recollections – when we fail to remember the intimate details of those shared joys and pains – we become aliens and uncomfortably “free”.
In order to stay unmolested, particularly in our moments of providential fortunes, we must be careful not to stir the dust of the past. Yet, we cannot really escape our relatives and friends. Their Necessity will seek those chains that bind us fast, demanding that we share our fortunes (not our misfortunes) with them.
Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness
I have a brother who is much much younger than I am. In fact, I was practically “nursemaid” to him as a baby, and he grew up under my care until I left the family to study under a government grant. After a few years, and I was already in the government, our lives’ paths met again and, as is normative to our society, I had to help him through his education. Failing to trace the steps I took towards a comfortable career, he nevertheless made it to join the naval force of another country and dropped out of my life.
Ten years after, more or less, my government gave me a subsidized observation tour of the foster country of my brother. I remembered him and thought it my fraternal duty to see him. After some effort to trace him through that country’s defense organization, I got in touch with him. My itinerary and his assignment gave us the opportunity to meet.
We met and shared a room together for two days. I realized, however, that although we are brothers, time and distance have changed both of us. True, we shared common origins – we have the same parents, blood, and name – but we had become strangers to each other. After a brief exchange of hellos and news from home – mostly about our parents – we had nothing more to talk about. I tried to tell him about my life during the last ten or so years and he his, but I sensed that we were listening to each other like strangers who met for the first time and were sizing each other up. Then, we parted as if with finality. We have not seen each other since then.
Nothing surprising about that. After all, ten years is a long time. I can shrug that one off, but strangely disturbing is the similar estranging situation that developed between me and my maturing children. After only six months of being out of my country I was lucky to be home again, but the reality of estrangement dawned on me once more. Where before I had an almost egalitarian relationship with them – as if they are my true siblings – that homecoming did not prevent an invisible barrier in the form of civility and respect towards a parent from coming between us to set us apart. There was stilted exchange of views and notes. And soon I was left alone to ponder the perplexities of being a stranger in one’s own home.
I strongly believed I have not changed; they changed. Yet I suspect that having stayed in a foreign land immersed in a different culture had really altered me, and the subtle changes in my behavior was perceived by them. Time and distance have made us into strangers, and eroded the communality of our lives. We no longer share the familiarity of our respective milieux and are thus strangers to each other, seeking in our momentary encounter the “nuances of custom and attitude” those bits of the past that will hopefully paste together the edges of the chasm our lives have created. (The situation between husband and wife caused by separation lasts but momentarily. Their physical reunion, intensified by fantasies engendered by the enforced abstinence, rapidly re-establishes the community of their interests.)
Our country, in the concrete, is our families and friends, and we are chained to them by our memories of common experiences. Returning to our country, we take great pains to obliterate strangeness by awakening memories, such as during reunions with friends. However, once we are drained of past recollections – when we fail to remember the intimate details of those shared joys and pains – we become aliens and uncomfortably “free”.
In order to stay unmolested, particularly in our moments of providential fortunes, we must be careful not to stir the dust of the past. Yet, we cannot really escape our relatives and friends. Their Necessity will seek those chains that bind us fast, demanding that we share our fortunes (not our misfortunes) with them.
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