A rose from Bulgaria and the butterfly effect

There is something great about doing things from the heart. In prolonged scenarios, I find myself enjoying a lot without having the protracted period where my organism lacks dopamine. 

During the holy month of Ramadan, in the midst of negotiations on local level, in the capital, between opposition political parties that aim to overthrow a-more-than 2 decade rule, I went to be a best man to Burgas, Bulgaria. I'd best explain it as being in Emir Kusturica movie, beautiful, weird and unrefined. Raw. Pure. 

A truly cleansing experience, one that brings about a wonderful and very important lesson: life is beautiful. 

During my 10 day experience in Burgas, I met some 50 wonderful young people. 50! The marriage context aside, I met 50 persons who are wonderful to their core. 50! On the wedding day, I met a girl with the most wonderful smile. She approached me with a light step, smiled and said: "I love you more than I love anyone else here". How deep! 

And all of these persons revolving around my best man and his wife. All because they find the simplicity in them to appreciate life for what it is. 

I met her there, too. A true butterfly. 

 

Tied to the past (rather than break-away from the past)

Two days ago, the old city government reaffirmed its desire to reduce (and professionalize) its colossal public administration. As I am actively searching for a job, my parent's got very excited and advised I write emails to ministries reminding them I have the credentials they might need. I resisted, because I find the whole ordeal - very sad.

Political statements such as these are a book example of what isomorphism will do to societies that have not attained the level of cultural and political development needed to foster democracy. For the past eight years, it's been mostly deliberation and endorsement, with regular torrent of comments sanctioned by independent thinkers, analysts and other commentators. As a result, a matter of simple action is transformed into a pseudo-science full of conflict - much like a reality show. This provides for an unprecedented level of political disenchantment to those with a minimal self-respect and further fuels the academic thinking of political desacralization and death of democracy. 

The view that laws need to correspond to civilizational development of a society is not hard science. On that axis, while West might be hurrying up too fast into the future (and breaking away from the past), the old city has been, inadvertently or not, encapsulated by its past. Justice be told, westerners have found a model to transfer wealth from generation to generation, but a predominant mode of thinking has been far removed from the institutions of old. 

Not the case in the old city. There is an astonishing blend of archaic and contemporary here, a place where hereditary thinking and modern institutions meet without any subtlety. People are born into jobs, and given that the biggest employer in the country is the government - people are born into public offices. Less than a year ago, a young boy, freshly graduated from a shady school, has been appointed as a head of a specialized public institution. For the obvious reasons, this completely defeats the virtue of democracy. No need for high philosophy and analysis here. 

The public administration is impregnated with princes such as these. The basic justification served is that it is difficult to wash out the communist leftovers (institutionalized thinking) and facilitate the needed curbing due to market limitations. The 'noblese oblige' here is that firing people from the public administration cannot be met by a market big enough to provide jobs. 

During the communist era, the old city alone housed more than 10 factories. Now, none of these are operational. Throughout the country, businesses and factories operated by the communist government were privatized in the most shady manner. The official view of the government still upheld is that the paradigm shift in market organization rendered the operation of previously state-owned-and-run businesses and factories - obsolete. This view has been accepted by western partners. 

Some inconsistencies are critical to note here. The old city market is now organized under a pure neo-liberal principle, where state-intervention and intrusion is a blasphemy. Regardless, the state remains the biggest employer, giving this model a startling pseudo-socialist prefix. How is this possible? And more importantly, why? 

An even bigger inconsistency creeps in the privatization, and consequent shut-down, of previously solvent factories. Old city is ripe with illustrative examples. Rich with mineral water springs, old city housed a carbonated mineral water factory that is now dead. Sure, the factory previously employed too many workers to be solvent in a liberalized market. But the paradigm shift did not erase the demand for its product. Rather than adjust and still serve the national demand, the factory is dead now. The country now imports impressive number of bottles of carbonated mineral water from our neighbors, persistently adding to the ever-increasing (and already sky-high) trade-deficit. Same is to be said of a textile factory, shoe manufacture and many other. 

The above example serves only to point that the expectation of a working economy that would facilitate a smaller public administration is common-sensical. Further, while the 'noblese oblige' principle is commanding, it did not prevent the government to shut down dozens of businesses in the early stages of the transition-era. Instead, it left a decade-long legacy that, beside maintaining a state apparatus impressive in size, also burdened the budget with a social programme incoherent with a neo-liberal model. In the economic sense, this legacy was purely non-utilitarian. Budget deficit is not desirable on political level, too. But the government enabled nevertheless. 

It is very easy to cushion an Orwellian argument here. In 1984, Orwell talks of the danger of poverty - a government induced state that fosters servile and obedient electorate. It is essentially an elevated Hobbesian argument, where people in the state of fear do not experience or develop mental faculties and culture.

Naturally, keeping the market limited and maintaining a large state apparatus does foster political servility. People need to eat. Empty bellies understand no nuances, nor are they subject to the requirements of an elevated spirit. Families fed by public administration, feed the political colossus with their votes. A job for a family of votes. As it is simple and effective in practice, it is common-sensical in the attempt of its apprehension. 

Except some get a tidy bit more than bread while at it. 

To America and back (part 1)

I left this old place when I was 18, only to return to it a tidy bit more mature. Although this old place provided me with a blueprint of development, it was really "abroad" that was truly formative for me. Sometimes I wonder if I ever came back? 

I know this old place not as much from within; I had the benefit of transposing my mind while it was still young. Much like my mind, this old place is of two equal parts; that which i knew from within and the one i wish to build anew. Beside being enveloped by the "foreign", my liberal education also proved critical in developing how I position my reason in relation to this old place. I learned much from all my travels, my school and my old self. 

When I was 18, I went to Alaska. Got a visa because I was a student of the American University situated in Europe (oh the sweet privilege being less administrative worry), booked an airplane ticket, made the online reservation at a hostel in Anchorage and scheduled a shuttle to take me from Anchorage to Denali. Mind you, at that time, resident of the old place did not have Master cards, ergo I was unable to make any payments. I basically relied on the goodwill of strangers to believe some person from a place they don't even know exists (yes, Americans suck at geography), really made the reservation and will act upon it. 

My decision to go to Alaska must have been my destiny. I never thought of going there. When I decided to go to that specific place of all the places I could've went that summer, it was without reason. Although I was quick on the trigger to confirm to people that it was because my life would otherwise never take me there. And why not? I am 18, about to work for the first time in my life, why not go to the end of the world? I should be able to learn something along the way, too. Its a gut feeling and I followed it. 

Immediately upon arriving at my motel in Anchorage, I guess I learned something about my old place. I unpacked and went to sip that American air in the nice garden motel had. Not surprising, as I am an extrovert and a slave to my own curiosity, I had a nice chat with a construction worker. I can't remember what we talked about, as it was one of those talks that are heartfelt and honest. If i have to look back at it now, all i know is that I talked to that person as a living and breathing being can, using the fact that we breathe the same air in a same way to be the common denominator, a fundamental link to our communication. To my surprise, he called me a wise person, estranging me from the American kids. I thought then, maybe their kids rush too much and really don't have the time to breathe it all in. Maybe that is the cost of being a child of a society that has pioneered development. 

Or maybe I was just spoiled and lazy. A predominant majority of kids from my old place have one obligation and one obligation only: to study. Whether we are from rich families, or poorer, we all don't work, but have to study. Whether this is a consequence of a well-established system where education pays off, or an insistence of a communist regime that collapsed while we were begging school, does not really matter. What I did learn is that, unlike American children, we have more time to ourselves - which probably means less opportunities. But more wisdom, apparently.

Meh, society trumps circumstance. This apparent freedom children from my old place enjoy does not bare much benefit. It is a remnant gift of an era that is devoid of a consistent set of values that are placed upon individuals. In academic literature, this is called transition. And although we were free, we were also devoid of a set of values we would carry through this transition. Freedom is always good, but not without a compass. The transition is now over and we are much less wise. Far beyond being grappled by a busy-bee socio-political machinima and the dangers it poses to all the good values we used to cherish, we also carry that void in our character. We don't just consume. We don't just loose ourselves and our families to markets and TV shows. We also lie and steal. And that is a sin worthy of cutting down the angel wings. 

Growing the wings

Outside is sunny, fresh breeze enveloping... Yet I do not feel the smell of a thousand year old roads as I once did. This old city, as old as history, lends itself not through structures of objects, but that of brains and habits. Here I lost my wings. But how and why?