Sentimentality, fallacy of adulthood
Bored in suburban Michigan with nothing to do, Ma decided to spam my iMessages with scans of letters and postcards I sent him in college, 10 years ago apparently. I found it cheesy and annoying. He was saying things like, "we've been friends for such a long time." It made me wish I moved to SF without telling him about it. Anyway, my reason for telling about this is I am not a sentimental person. I don't sit and look back through photos of the past or dream dreams of the future. I believe all we have is the present. When Ma says we've been friends for a long time, I find it strange to hear it because the person I was 10 years ago does not exist now, and the person I am now did not exist 10 years ago.
Sometimes on the train, I like to look at people and imagine when they were like as kids. Or, rather, imagine them as kids. After all, we are the same people we were as kids. We just look like adults now, but we are a continuation of the same person we were as kids. I don't know about you, but I am still the same person I was when I was a kid. I still want the same things. I still get mad and happy over the same things. Some people it is easy to imagine they are kids who look like adults. Other people it is very hard or impossible to imagine they were ever kids. They speak and act so much like adults, so responsible and adultlike. They have internalized their adulthood. It is hard to imagine they were ever children.
In Russia there is a song called "Don't Cry Alisa." It is about the evening before a girl's sixteenth birthday. In early 90s Russia, 16 was considered the age when one becomes an adult. It may have changed in recent times. Maybe now it is 18. In any case, the song goes, don't cry, the stars have come out, and you have turned 16.
"This is it - the warm summer has ended
This is it - it is always hard to part ways
To part ways with the memory of magic
Knowing it will not appear again
And you cry, and the rain outside the window
And you cry, but childhood has gone by
CHORUS:
"Don't cry Alisa - you have grown up
The holiday arrived - and you have turned 16
Farewell Alisa - the stars have dimmed
And the first sunrise of adult life glances in through the window
"For the first time, you are not meeting guests at the door
For the first time, you react with ambivalence to the smiles of your friends
And among the presents there are no toys
And you don't need anyone now
This is a holiday of closed doors
This is the holiday of yesterday's children
CHORUS
"This is it - the wind spins the fallen leaves
This is it - but it could not be any other way
Summer is not always warm - snow leaves ice on the windows
And you cry, but childhood has gone by
And you cry, but childhood has gone by
CHORUS x2
When I listen to this song again, I am reminded that Russian is indeed a very poetic language which is very efficient in getting across meaning and emotion. And I think unlike German or Japanese or some more standardized languages, it is quite flexible in that there are many words for the same thing, allowing for subtle changes in meaning.
Around the time I turned 16, throughout college, and probably into my mid-twenties, it was hard for me to listen to this song. I thought I had to believe what it was saying, that sixteen, or early twenties, or mid-twenties meant you were no longer a child, you were a grown up and had to face the life of grown up responsibilities, and had to internalize it and act a certain way. Well most recently, perhaps around the time I turned 30, or maybe before that, I am realizing it is really not true. It has helped to minimize my contact with my parents and other family members like aunts, and grandparents who perpetuate this sad fallacy of the dichotomy between childhood and adulthood. I get it. That is what they grew up with in Russia, or wherever. Maybe it was a survival mechanism for them in their circumstances. However, what I realized recently is it is bullshit. Some people stay children their whole lives. Other people internalize the whole adulthood thing and act like mature adults. The other day I saw a 40 something in a hoodie, baseball cap, and board shorts skateboarding down the sidewalk smoking what appeared to be marijuana. I had to look closely as he sped past to catch his age on his face. Otherwise he would look like a tall teenager or a college student. But by his face I would believe if someone told me he was in his early 40s.
The importance of "Don't Cry Alisa," is not that we have to take it at its word. We have to look at it critically as a crystalline example of how perpetuation of cultural fallacies is passed on generation to generation and reinforced in this retelling. When we see it from such a third person perspective, we realize we have a choice in whether to believe and perpetuate it or not. Clearly I refuse to do so.
Source Material:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdE0t1-MmBA
As far as rituals go, Russia has its share: birthday parties, New Year, Mothers Day, Armed Forces/Fathers Day, Victory Day. All of Russia's rituals and celebrations are secular. In recent times religion has gathered support, I hear, but I suspect religious holidays don't have much meaning to the average Russian.
What does Russia mean in the modern day? I saw a Russian porn clip. Actually that is a little personal and I won't go into the details but I saw the familiar raw animal instincts, racism. Though the bottom looked mixed Russian/Mongolian and the top acted like a wild animal but also gentle toward the bottom. Actually I am not afraid of the rawness and violence and neo-Nazism that comes across in certain ethnic Russians with their shaved head and scary expressions that are something straight out of a Ku Klux Klan meeting. Yes, these are things to be afraid of, but these are also kids I went to school with so perhaps I am not that afraid of them. They already beat me up, so it's not like I don't know what I am dealing with. In Russians there is this interesting contradiction of extreme intelligence together with being wild animals - bears, wolves, what have you. Russia is decidedly anti-German. Yet in some fundamental ways is similar to Germany: rigidity of concepts, consistency. I hear stories about the anti-gay things happening in Russia now and what can I say. The Russians I know are very liberal. Apparently lots of the ones in Russia are conservative. What can we do? We can't live our lives worrying about what other people think. I am going to live in a way that is honest for me.