Messer & Connecting

I've been looking at trying to get hold of Messer (meaning 'Knife' or 'Knives', I think), the book of Lindemann's poems. Right now it's beyond my budget (and I need to learn German anyway), but I found a YouTube video showing the pictures from it. Without taking in the poetry these made me sad. I'm not sure what precisely it is about them that provoked this, but they first and foremost give me the feeling that he feels pretty thoroughly cut off from other people, so that's probably it.

I'm sure that like me and (I would imagine) everyone else you have an inner life that nobody else touches. That's the nature of self-awareness. We're restricted in our ability to connect with other people by their honesty, our honesty, and the limitations of language. We're individuals and are necessarily isolated by our narrow interface with the world. There's also the fact that in some contexts people avoid new connections.

I've noticed the contrasts in this since we moved out to the beach. We live in a beach resort, for want of a better phrase. There are permanent residents in a growing number, but a fair number of the homes here are beach houses, known as baches. People come here from Wellington and from other parts of the country during the summer, and on long weekends, when they can get out of town and enjoy the wonderful feeling of coastal New Zealand at its best. During the off-season many of these are empty, and there's a feeling of slumber and quietude here that is restful and pleasant. During the season it's humming with happy, relaxed people, all soaking up the holiday feel.

I used to walk a lot when I lived in cities. I'd walk for hours, and have always been prone to smiling and making eye contact when I pass people. It's just 'me'. In inner Wellington and Auckland this sometimes gets a responding smile, returned eye contact, and perhaps a few words of greeting or observation. The vast majority of the time this gets responses ranging from a strange look to averted eyes and a hurrying of pace. Avoidance behaviour in response to the most basic and benign of initiations seems the norm, and is unpleasant and saddening. Why does it happen? Are people so cynical and jaded that it offends them to have friendly overtures made my a perfect stranger?

Up here, at the beach, in the midst of all this wide open freshness people respond differently most of the time. Up here most of the responses are warm and reciprocal. Those who avoid interaction are in the minority, and all but a minor few at the very least return my smile. I've had fairly long, involved conversations with people I've never before or since, on the basis of a smile and simple greeting in passing. This to me is what community is about, but it doesn't exist so much in the city. I don't see why it shouldn't.

Added to that, there are a lot of people out there who interact with others only for what it can get them. Their social lives are self-interested and ego-centric. They don't connect on any genuine level, possibly because they fear the vulnerability they experience when they do. I don't understand this.

Does Lindemann feel alone and isolated? I need to get the book and work out what the words mean to get a better idea of what he's wanting to convey, but in the meantime, if someone makes eye contact and offers you a little human interaction, even if it's just a small smile, please reciprocate. You really don't have anything to lose, and possibly have much to gain. You might even make a relatively big difference in someone else's life.

[discuss]