[BACKGROUND] Before I started writing this blog, I thought about saving it for the second issue of my journal Lukianography (which was never finished) But then, I decided to share it here first. This won’t be a post filled with fancy, flowery sentences that don’t really say anything. Instead, it’s going to be a pretty honest, straightforward take on a conversation I’ve had with myself.
In Hamburg, I stumbled upon Hundsrose tea, a popular beverage here, and apparently, it’s a favorite among locals too. While I’m not sure if it’s as healthy as the tea I used to drink in Imereti, Georgia, the taste was undeniably similar. Traditionally, tea drinking has always been a time for me to think. The combination of a cup of coffee and the expansive horizon before my eyes creates a cozy environment that allows my mind to process, organize, and revisit old thoughts, memories, or mental notes. I can use various synonyms to describe these fragments, but the essence remains the same — small stories that have settled in our minds, often left unsorted and unintentionally stored in our thoughts. As I sip on the steaming Hundsrose tea, the “Slow Motion” of the hot water’s steam facilitates this process of sticking, sorting, and activating my brain, much like how a steam engine powers a steamer.
Funny, but I think it’s still an accurate comparison.
Life up to the age of 34 was filled with both intriguing and challenging experiences. Despite the financial support my family provided, I still faced numerous difficult moments. Back then, not many Georgian children were as well-off as I was, and this fact is worth highlighting. My grandfather, Elguja, was the primary financial provider for all of this. He was an incredible man whose energy and intelligence were truly remarkable, even after living for nearly a century. Despite the material happiness of that era, my family faced many problems, similar to those of families in the 90s, which had a significant impact on my development. Whether these experiences were positive or negative is a separate matter, but it’s undeniable that family circumstances, especially during childhood, have a profound influence on an individual’s life.
This topic could be the basis for another blog post with much more detail, but it seems inappropriate to expand on my childhood experiences in this text, and I will stop here.
Every day, we unknowingly accumulate new life experiences. Sometimes, we become exhausted or continue to exist traumatized. These traumas automatically compel us to avoid certain things or take inappropriate precautions, which often seem inadequate. In recent years, I’ve come to realize that many people who left me with negative experiences played a significant role in my personal growth. Yes, we change; our character and attitudes evolve every minute. While some may disagree with my perspective, this is my opinion on the matter.
To return to Askili’s tea, last week, I found myself sitting on the stairs of my apartment building, gazing at the yard and contemplating with my eyes closed: how many stages can I divide this journey into? For instance, before relocating to Tbilisi, the most significant challenge was the absence of a community where I felt truly at home. Living in Zestaponi provided a tremendous boost (I had previously shared a post on this topic on social media, and I recall that Radio Fortuna journalist and my close friend Nino Murghulia published it on the radio’s website). This experience also served as a powerful catalyst for me to initiate significant changes. The value of all this in this particular form remains a mystery to me.
If I reach the next stage, it will definitely start after I moved to the capital and decided to solve / resolve a lot of problems all by myself. The conclusion at that time: when you have no one by your side and you struggle alone – life resembles a real marathon, which includes not sports activities, but constant proofs that you are a good person, that you either deserve this or you don’t deserve it.
I probably won’t be able to write anything that others haven’t thought of, but I think if I follow all the stages chronologically and look at it from the side – it will all seem more interesting. It doesn’t matter in Georgia, even if your tryings to prove the world your ”skills” or anything. Although I did cause some changes. I re-imagined my career, I took up a new orientation and really liked the situation when you do something, you like it and you earn money from it.
It’s definitely not right for everyone, but this justification definitely requires the appropriate atmosphere to be happy. With us, the environment in Georgia has become very difficult over the past 10 years and I came to a reality where I was doing what I liked, had some income, but I still wasn’t well. Primarily, this environment was caused by the fragile political background, which, despite my wishes – it was not on my agenda – still occupied a large place, and this is not new, it has been raging among us for years and has affected everything.
You live, exist, create, pursue some goals, and at the same time you feel that it’s all the same, no one really cares about all this because there are other things in mainstream. Political things… how much you spend on all this, time, physical energy, and then even worse is the realization of the hopelessness when, by standing on the side of the light, your hard-earned and years-old home may one day be bombed, just like some children’s hospital in Kiev. This is that constant foreboding that, when you close your eyes, goes into your eardrums. It never leaves you. The question: “Why am I working or striving so hard, if I have to be afraid of losing it as long as I live?!” I couldn’t get rid of it.
And society became more and more polarized. Someone couldn’t stand me because I thought so. Our political diarrhea turned family members against each other. “That’s the way of thinking” when you don’t want to return to that place (which not only you, not only your father’s generation, but even part of your grandfather’s generation sacrificed) – Russia.
With daily examples, we have reached the point where expressing the right opinion has become risky. Everyone in the country who speaks out is either physically assaulted, or blackmailed with their private lives and publicly cut themselves.
A situation that is very similar to being forcibly tied up, with their hands over their mouths and plugs in their ears. Nihilism shattered me so profoundly that I ultimately deleted all the public posts I had ever written and completely closed the section of my written posts on my own social networks. Finally, I posed the question: what is the distinction between Soviet censorship and this reality?
I also received an answer:
“You shouldn’t live in such a way that you’re ashamed to reveal something.” This is all madness… Who determines which episode of my personal life is decisive for me? all this is still a mortal shame and I believe that there are those who do this, because they know the psychology of our people perfectly.
Our people really care about such things and no one will even raise an eyebrow, they will morally tear you apart piece by piece and turn you into a center of public ridicule. Finally, I was afraid to speak out and I understood this. I realized that I was afraid. For me, for my family, for my friends. The fact is that I was scared, and this situation completely destroyed my identity and peace.
During the entire period when my family and I were busy creating everyday conditions, after we overcame elementary household problems and saw a roof over our heads, I realized that beyond these four walls – a Armageddon had begun, which would inevitably break down my door and come to me. I was overcome by the fear of insecurity in my own country.
It is a pity that our people do not respect people’s private lives as much as they are blind and deaf where the boundaries of comfort end. For example: For the last 5 years I have been experiencing serious pressure, that I am already of the age where I should think about my children, that I have run out of time, that I am already a very big boy and have fallen behind in the “carrier” of reproduction… I know, I am not alone here either. Many people of my age are found in Georgia with similar influences.
Constant comparison with others who have given birth to children and “managed” to do so, while living in a complete idyll for others to see.
I do not want to live for others to see…
The “well-wishers” around me could not forgive me for being in my own world with my own plans. According to these well-wishers, I would never have touched these topics with my own head, so how did I fall short of their standards and delay reproduction?!
I have thought a lot about my future child or children. I have thought about how selfish I must be to sacrifice my new life for a living in an environment where I know for sure that he has been abused since childhood, just like I was abused in Zestafoni. What can I say about the 100 different chocolates containing synthetic fats, bought in stores, made in Gori or in underground factories? About violence in schools and accidental participation in neighborhood disputes? The constant fear that one day someone will slit the throat of your child born of bitterness and whining, and you will not even find justice, which you will no longer need for anything, but still, because the son or nephew of some privileged official is guilty and someone is protecting him?! The inevitability of injustice has bought my hopes.
This is not self-justification or laziness. It is an understanding of full responsibility and fear: will I add a truly healthy person to this chaotic world or will another traumatized hybrid burden the earth with my last name… I don’t know. Now and then – no.
I always tried to understand the most unacceptable thoughts, the still-existing Soviet nostalgia, I could not take this empathy of mine anywhere, I wanted to reach out to the craziest mainstream (do you want war?!), but I couldn’t. Still, I think that people are really smart enough to be able to draw conclusions based on facts, and this nostalgia is not worth it to anyone! Darkness and evil are darkness and evil, period.
Every day, a tense, unfair, politically engaged environment that drains all resources, the attitude in various companies, injustice, labeling, brain pollution, again injustice, lack of talent and competence, but much more physical abilities than you, again injustice, fear, instability, this constant chaos from all sides, and in the end – you simply leave the country where they sewed up your mouth, tied your hands, blocked your ears and told you that you are nobody. Where I had been claiming for the last 15 years that I was “a good guy” and I had come to a point where at least someone knew me and said that I was a professional in my field, but fear consumed me. Starting a new life at this age, I understood what it meant for my parents’ generation – a moment of loss. They were lost in a decade and their connection to modernity was severed. Unlike them, adaptation was always relatively possible for my generation.
I still don’t understand why I collected such a large library of oriental literature, if I had to leave all the books in Georgia and never read them. I still don’t understand why I chose that blue wallpaper for the bedroom wall, which calmed me and I don’t want to sleep there anymore, I don’t understand what was the point of wasting so much time if I had to leave all this and leave, but I don’t complain. I think about it.
The next stage is probably the answer to the question: are you going to return? I didn’t leave to go back tomorrow or the day after. This is not the “what has been seen” stage. There are many problems here, which I had solved in all directions, but I have already talked about the other things that made me take this step higher. It is a different, but still much calmer environment here. But despite this calm, I still can’t help but follow my interest in the Georgian agenda at some level. Wherever I am, I feel very sorry for my country for its current state. Everything seems even more terrible from here.
As for this country: Germany was not the first that came to mind for me to continue my studies. After I collected all the necessary documents for a college in Scotland, sent them, successfully passed the interviews and was rejected for some non-existent reason, my ambitions grew and I applied for a master’s program instead of college. I still believe in the phrase that everything happens for the better, at least in situations when I want to calm my heart.
Starting with the Barcelona School of Art, I considered many master’s programs at leading European universities and sent my motivation letter and portfolio to 4 of them. The first to express interest in me was the European University in Germany, which has several campuses around the world, including here, in Hamburg and Berlin. For some reason, Hamburg was closer to me, because I had been to Berlin, and the noise, dirt and chaos that I saw there, against the background of my life’s stresses left behind, were not interesting.
Everything went according to plan. I left my dog, family, friends and at the age of 34, I started all over again and my name is student again. In my country, I am somewhat behind, but here I am in the first stage of the marathon “I am a good guy”.
What worries me the most today is my inability to speak German fluently. Perhaps in a few years, when I read this entry, I will smile. Here, there is one irreplaceable given to life – language. Without it, it is practically unthinkable to work here, adapt, and integrate into the circle of local people. As in all European countries, the local language is used to the maximum. The so-called depraved and globalization-stealing Europe still retains its identity in all its countries and still exists in plural form. In Germany, the German language is everywhere: in supermarkets, on websites, in advertisements, even at the household level, when you can’t even read the side effects on the medicine box unless you use a translator. These people love the language they speak, and if you plan to stay here, unlike us, they won’t speak Russian or English to you, they’ll just force you to learn German. It’s painful, but at the initial stage. I don’t think I’ll perceive it with such intensity after 1-2 years.
It is a rare practice to have English-speaking graphs, and it is also rare for an English-speaking person to receive the same amount of goodwill when communicating with people as you would in German. A country that at first glance seems cold and gray, welcomed me very well and accepted me. Germany managed to activate me in 2 months in a way that Georgia has not been able to do in the last 15 years.