Every month, our expert analyzes an everyday situation that raises questions for us. thinks about why there is so much garbage around us.
“Mom, why is it so dark and dirty in here?” – clinging to me, the eldest daughter asks. “And it smells bad!” – adds the youngest. We are entering our entrance, having returned to our homeland after a two-year absence … The topic of our attitude to garbage and dirt has occupied me for a long time. One of the most powerful impressions from America: whirlwinds of paper trash underfoot on Fifth Avenue (the very center of New York); my colleague drops his white jacket on the way out of the supermarket; we step on it together, raise it … but it is still snow-white. The scene in the entrance, with which I started, played out 20 years ago. The fight against impurity in the world continues. Not even clean, dry trash flies on Fifth Avenue anymore, and the fines for throwing a piece of paper out of a window on freeways are on the rise. Gardens are laid out on garbage heaps. The entire West sorts garbage, and the sidewalks are not just swept, they are washed with shampoo. And on our roads, sidewalks, in the entrances it is still dark, and dirty, and it smells bad … Bags of garbage are standing near the garbage chute or right at the entrance. Shit native dogs interspersed with cigarette butts and beer bottles lies on the same native playground. Boots are covered with patchy scab after each pass, even on more or less smooth asphalt. Why? There are still no answers that satisfy me completely. Only reflections and new questions.
Feelings of ownership and self-respect.
Common means no one’s, so it’s not mine – and I don’t give a damn about that. And in the literal sense of the word. We do not feel like masters in our house, yard, city, country. Even in our private lives, we sometimes behave like nomadic aliens who can be driven away at any moment. How to gain self-esteem and the right to have and influence (and with them the responsibility for the quality of your life)?
Slavic “breadth of soul” against Puritan neatness.
It is assumed that the scale of the incomprehensible national soul does not allow us to think about vulgar little things (like cleanliness and order) against the backdrop of world problems. Maybe it makes sense for us to… “narrow down”, in the words of Dostoevsky, our breadth?
Reflection of spiritual chaos.
Social slovenliness and uncleanliness, general “something” is a reflection of the disorder in the brain, in the system of values. Isn’t it time to start transforming this chaos into a system that is more adequate to the modern world challenges?
Raising lumpen.
How often do parents on the street calmly say to a child: “Don’t throw the paper away, let’s find the urn”? On the other hand, one often hears how a mother or father, angrily tugging at a child’s hand, commands: “Drop this muck!” It is clear that now – and right where you stand. How to restore the cultural connection of the times – to educate parents so that they can teach their children, as my mother once said, to be at least insincere, but polite?
Natalia Tumashkova, family psychotherapist, member of the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP).