Germany: a few thoughts and impressions

https://markenglish.substack.com/p/brief-travel-update-germany?r=3knty7

A few thoughts and personal impressions garnered from my twelve-week stay.

Travel notes: thoughts and observations from Germany, Belgium and Albania

For the past fifteen months I have been travelling in Europe, staying successively in Greece, Bulgaria, Malta, England, Germany, Belgium and Albania. I'm now back in Germany.

I've published occasional pieces on these wanderings but nothing for more than four months now. Here, then, are some recent thoughts and observations on specific places and on Europe in general.

Economic and social problems are everywhere evident, and are getting worse. The cultural decline (or "forgetting") which accompanies these changes — a long, drawn-out process which seems to be gathering pace — has always disturbed me. And, though it would be a mistake to underestimate the depth and resilience of the cultures of Europe and the values which they represent, forces hostile to these values have created in recent years what feels like a dangerous instability.

The natural world is important to me also, both in itself and in terms of how it has influenced and is influenced by regional and national cultures. In places to which I have a connection and/or feel some kind of affinity, I like to be able to identify at least the most common local species (especially birds, animals and trees). I happened to mention this fact to a knowledgeable English friend (the French adjective moqueuse would fit her well) as we walked in the garden of her home in a picturesque part of southern England. Pointing towards a nearby field she said, “Those are black sheep, those are white sheep.”

I spent the first week of September in Dortmund and found it nondescript and a bit unkempt, but my stay was pleasant. There was a park near my hotel to walk and relax in; easy shopping; very friendly and obliging people; a good U-Bahn network linked to a manageable Hauptbahnhof.

From Dortmund I travelled by train (via Cologne, Aachen and Liège) to Namur, the Wallonian capital, and later to Charleroi. National and local elections were held while I was staying in Namur which I did not follow closely but election slogans, graffiti and general conversation reflected social polarization and were very much in line with recent trends across Europe.

Charleroi isn’t a pretty or prosperous city but where I was based (on Place Verte, a pedestrian precinct only a short walk from the main station) there was evidence of new business investment and no obvious signs of social conflict.

In the mid-1930s, an extreme conservative and corporatist political movement and party, the Rexists (after the Latin phrase for Christ the King), was formed in Belgium by Léon Degrelle. It persisted during the German occupation and Degrelle himself fought for the Germans with the Walloon Legion on the Eastern Front. Rexists played prominent roles in government during the occupation and were a target for the local Resistance. Late in the war, there was much civil violence and tit-for-tat killings between these groups. The only memorial I saw which mentioned the Rexists was a plaque on a presbytery wall in central Charleroi honouring a prominent priest, Pierre Harmignies, who was murdered by Rexists in 1944.

Most war memorials in Belgium commemorate soldiers who died during the Great War. There was one, I noticed, in Queen Astrid Park in central Charleroi at which flowers had been laid. A few metres away stands another, more modest, war memorial featuring the representation of a pigeon with wings outstretched atop a pillar with the simple inscription: AU PIGEON SOLDAT.

I mentioned the pigeon memorial to my unsentimental English friend who subsequently made an oblique allusion to it in an email. She won’t mind my quoting her, I’m sure: “Autumn colours seem to be late this year but I am looking out at oak and ash trees that are turning golden brown and already the pigeons and field fares have stripped the berries from the holly (if only some of the former could be sent to The Front!).”

My recent stay in Tirana was more educational than enjoyable. Though the hotel was good, the surrounding area was not, particularly in terms of pedestrian and other local infrastructure. There was nowhere pleasant to walk and no acceptable public transport (other than taxis). As a consequence I breakfasted in the hotel restaurant every day and spent a lot of time in my room. Fortunately the hotel staff (local people) were friendly and easy to talk to and I had positive encounters with a few other Albanian nationals. One was a young man who was on the same flight as me out of Tirana. I noticed that he went out of his way to help a frail woman whom he didn’t know to alight from a tarmac bus and walk to the crowded arrivals hall at Niederrhein Airport where airport staff took over and ushered her through.

Though most of the people I spoke to in Albania were aware of — and frustrated by — government corruption, I didn’t see much evidence of overt political activism there. Nor did I witness the social and religious frictions which are so evident elsewhere in Europe. No doubt there was a lot going on beneath the surface however — these are just impressions from a three-week visit.

The country’s Ottoman past has left indelible marks on religious and other practices and cultural links with Turkey and the Levant persist. This despite the fact that, for more than four decades following World War 2, Albania was governed by a hardline Stalinist (and increasingly isolationist) regime.

I did manage to develop a daily walk routine centred on the mainly residential area behind the hotel in which the streets and lanes are set out — and not in a planned way — like a complicated maze with many dead ends. The “river” on the map turned out to smell like a sewer and its banks looked like an unofficial rubbish dump (building waste etc.).

Car wash businesses operated in virtually every significant street (a consequence of the combination of poor roads and parking areas and a car-proud population). Lots of good German cars. The city of Tirana has no metro and the country has no rail network. Peak-hour traffic is horrendous.

Along the back streets in which I walked, women and old men pushed wheelbarrows with mysterious cargoes. There were some grand houses, but most were shabby. Albanian flags were displayed in private homes and businesses, hung from balconies etc.. National day celebrations had occurred just after my arrival but many of the flags had not been taken down weeks later.

The national anthem or hymn to the flag is basically a call to fight — and die. Strangely the focus in the song seems to be on dying rather than on winning. A warrior culture, certainly. “... From war abstains only he who a traitor is born...”

The children seemed unusually well-behaved. Given the many Christmas trees and fairy lights in private homes, I assumed the area I was in was predominantly Christian. But there was also a significant Muslim presence. Though most of the women I saw were unveiled, quite a few wore the hijab.

My main Albanian interlocutor at the hotel was a Muslim married to an Orthodox Christian. She only wore a head-covering when going to the mosque or to church, she said. There was a mosque nearby and, depending on the depth of my sleep at the time, I would hear early-morning prayers (around 5 am).

Though I had used up (in Belgium and Germany) 88 of my allotted 90 visa-free days (per 180 days) in the Schengen zone, I decided to fly to Germany and invoke a little-known bilateral visa-exemption agreement dating back to the 1950s which allows Australian citizens 90 days in Germany irrespective of previous Schengen country visits so long as certain conditions are met.

I entered Germany (as mentioned previously) via Niederrhein Airport, a very small and isolated facility close to the Dutch border which has been misleadingly dubbed Düsseldorf Weeze by Ryanair. (It’s nowhere near Düsseldorf.) Not so long ago the airport was an RAF base known as Laarbruch.

The border police I dealt with there were not fluent in English and I don’t speak German. They scanned my passport and the system indicated that I would have to depart Germany within 48 hours. I tried to put my case and showed them on my phone a brief explanation of the longstanding visa-exemption agreement from an official German source, but the text was in English and the officer did not read it. Three of them discussed the matter between themselves, asking me the occasional question. Then suddenly it was all smiles and thumbs up on their part as my passport was finally stamped and handed back to me but I have no way of knowing what caused the change of heart. Given that the arrangement doesn’t involve a visa or written authorization, there could conceivably be trouble on my departure from Germany and the Schengen zone but I don’t expect there will be.

It was very cold and almost dark by the time I boarded a local bus which took me from the airport to a train station in a small town nearby (Weeze). And it was completely dark when the train to Düsseldorf arrived. I enjoyed the warmth of the train for the hour-long journey, secure in the knowledge that my hotel was within easy walking distance of the Hauptbahnhof. No more checkpoints or complicated connections.

Travelling independently and (to a certain extent) off the beaten track does pose challenges but so far they are proving manageable. And on this latest journey it was gratifying to realize that others (including younger people and native German speakers) did not necessarily know what I knew or had figured out. Once or twice I was able to help rather than being the one asking for advice or directions.

Having spent a month in Düsseldorf and having quite enjoyed getting to know the city (or parts thereof), I have now bought a train ticket to Dortmund. (I had been planning to stay longer in Düsseldorf actually, but there is a big trade fair coming up and hotel room rates are rising rapidly.)

Future movements are uncertain but the plan to stay in Germany until the spring still looks attractive.

Trying out Substack

Here is a link to my latest Substack piece:

https://markenglish.substack.com/p/towpath-reflections

If this Substack site (called Parsing the Parade) gets some traction I may put my main focus there and put my other sites on the back burner. At this stage, however, it is just an experiment.

Submit your email address and new posts (one every few weeks perhaps?) will be sent to your email inbox. It's free, and it's easy to unsubscribe at any time.

Here is a general link to Parsing the Parade: https://markenglish.substack.com

Outpatient at Mater Dei

Back in December, when I was in Sofia, I noticed a dark, more-or-less rectangular shape in my field of vision when I opened my right eye after sleeping but which resolved itself after a few seconds. It was obviously a symptom of something but, as it wasn't affecting my life in any way and as it appeared to be stable from day to day, I decided not to see a specialist.

In January, after talking to friends about it, I finally decided to act. I was staying in Malta at the time at a hotel which happened to be within walking distance of a large public hospital (Mater Dei). I went there to make enquiries and was directed to the emergency department. They organized an immediate examination by an ophthalmologist; no red tape or bureaucratic obstruction. Laser treatment was recommended and a booking for the next day was made for me at the hospital's ophthalmology outpatients clinic. The purpose of the treatment was to seal a retinal tear which had already healed itself naturally but which could (I was told) be made safer.

The treatment was quite an experience. The doctor, a young woman, seemed at first to be having a bit of trouble. It wasn't going quite as she wanted or expected. With my approval she turned up the power. The long laser blasts were still not having the desired result however. Apologies, and another tweak upwards on the power dial. This happened three or four times.

The bright yellow blasts seemed to go deeper and deeper and were painful in a dull, edge-of-consciousness sort of way. It was quite unlike the sharp pain of a dentist's drill. A couple of times the doctor stopped and took a short break, presumably for my benefit but maybe for hers also. Normally a bit of a wimp about pain, I played the stoic this time because, for obvious reasons, I didn't want to move my head or distract her in any way. Eventually her supervisor took over and added some final touches (with short bursts and a lighter hand).

At a follow-up appointment a couple of weeks later at the same clinic, the eye was examined by another doctor who recommended no further treatment. My response: relief, cautious optimism and a renewed focus on stress minimization, hydration and diet.

Before having the treatment I had asked around about Mater Dei Hospital (positive responses), and also did a quick Google search which indicated that standards were high but waiting times could be long. Not in ophthalmology apparently. As a foreigner from a country which has a reciprocal health care agreement with Malta, I was impressed by the quick and no-nonsense way I was integrated into the system and treated.

In Bulgaria

My lack of knowledge of the Bulgarian language has made it difficult for me to get beyond a superficial understanding of the country but the very fact that so many people here (including the young) are strongly committed to their language and culture is revealing.

Compared to Athens, Sofia seems gentler and more congenial. Bulgaria is clearly a poor country, but I think it’s safe to say that the economic situation here is not as dire as the situation in Greece. Greece struck me as a very unhappy country indeed, with abundant signs of psychological stress, anger and resentment in sections of the population. Such signs are less evident here.

There are countless reminders of Bulgaria’s Communist history, both physical (older buildings and infrastructure) and psychological (culture and attitudes). But whether the apparent Stoicism of the not-so-well-off is due to the country’s experience during the Cold War or something older and deeper I do not know.

I found the metro in Sofia more pleasant to use than the Athens metro. But one day, hurrying to board a departing train, I was not quite quick enough to entirely clear the rapidly closing doors. The doors caught and crushed my small backpack so that, for a few seconds, I was pinned to the doors and unable to move.

This was an old, square-fronted Soviet-era train, one of the few still operating. The carriage interior, from the floor covering to the seating to the ventilation and heating system, was markedly different from any other metro carriages I had seen here. But the most striking feature (pun intended) were the automatic doors which closed with sudden and vicious force. Guillotine-like. I’ve never encountered anything quite like it.

As it happens, I have had no health insurance cover while in Greece or Bulgaria and so am living dangerously. I thought that so long as I took reasonable care and avoided wild, wooded areas (there are wolves and bears apparently) I would be safe. Little did I realize that even in boring parts of town (to which I tend to gravitate) hazards abound.

On the roads for example. It’s amazing how ingrained one’s intuitions are about traffic flows. This applies to pedestrians as much as to drivers, and if virtually all one’s prior experience was gained in countries where traffic drives on the left-hand side, it’s so easy to step off the curb at the wrong time and walk under a passing bus.

Even some instances of the apparently benign walk (or “green man”) traffic-light signal may betray sinister intent. Were these configurations cunningly designed to trick foreigners or perhaps – more sinister still – to cull the duller or less-alert segments of the population? For example, the other day I was just about to respond to a green walk signal straight ahead of me across the street when I noticed a red signal on the thin median strip and so just managed to avoid walking into the torrent of traffic surging from my left.

Returning to my Sofia hotel (near the airport) one afternoon, I was surprised to see an unsupervised and untethered horse grazing on the grassy verge. As I walked past on the paved sidewalk, I saw a teenaged boy approaching the horse and was vaguely reassured that the animal would in due course be taken to a safer place. The horse panicked however and bolted past me, rather too close for comfort. It galloped around behind the hotel, followed by the running boy.

Another hazard are automated boom gates. They are everywhere in these parts, usually complemented by cyclone fencing topped with barbed wire. There are boom gates and no dedicated pedestrian entrance at the hotel I am staying at, but thankfully no barbed wire.

On a more serious note, I must say that I am glad to be in Europe again and beginning the slow process of acclimatizing myself to the practical contingencies and perspectives of contemporary European life. New experiences meld with literary and intellectual influences. Old memories are revivified and tested.

Though I have no expertise in natural history, I feel the need (or the desire at least) to be able to identify common plants, birds etc., at least to the extent that any normally observant person growing up in a given geographical location will know them. I know some European birds and trees but found it slightly frustrating not to be able to identify, for example, the black birds that formed large flocks in the vicinity of Sofia airport and whose aerial manoeuvrings reminded me of bats. Were they Eurasian jackdaws? The elegant, long-tailed Eurasian magpies were easier to identify.

With respect to local trees, many of them (unsurprisingly) are identical to English and other familiar European varieties.

But my main areas of interest (at least in recent times) relate to the human realm: to psychology, to culture, to politics. And cultural attitudes in Bulgaria incorporate a number of apparently conflicting strands. A certain nostalgia for the Communist era mixes with attachments to older religious and mystical perspectives; and strong commitments to the EU exist side-by-side with elements of Romantic nationalism.

Environmental issues are taken very seriously but usually in sensible and practical (rather than ideological) ways, with the focus on simple and appropriate technologies.

More generally, ordinary life seems less politicized here than it has become in other countries with which I am familiar. This is a good thing, in my opinion. Politics has its place but when it dominates a culture and intrudes into private, personal and inter-personal areas, social and intellectual life is inevitably compromised.

Athens interlude

I spent the latter part of October and most of November in Athens. The weather was glorious. And the rocky, dry, austere landscapes of Greece have always appealed to me. But economic pressures are obviously taking their toll and the country appears to be locked into a downward spiral.

Just down the street from where I was staying is Athens railway station (also known as Larissa Station). The station has seen better days. In the past it was integrated into the European rail network and hosted the Orient Express and an express to Berlin. No more. Today there are no international links. You can get a train to Thessaloniki – if you’re lucky. When I tried to book, there was a notification that part of the line was out of action.

Athens road traffic is heavy and not easy to deal with as a pedestrian. There are many parks, however, including Pedion tou Areos with its oleanders and jacarandas and extensive network of paths and walkways.

There is a quaint little park by Larissa Station but this area (like many areas of the city) is impoverished and run down. Next to the park – as if mimicking the ancient ruins which characterize this part of the world – is a derelict basketball court, two hoops lying on the ground with their support structures uprooted. And overlooking the abandoned court is a residential building with its ground floor a boarded-up and apparently fire-damaged retail space. So many buildings hereabouts (hotels, residential, commercial) are standing idle, abandoned and boarded-up or half-demolished.

Many of the people I encountered seemed stressed, unhappy and not well disposed to tourists. I would go so far as to say that there is resentment towards tourists on the part of a sizable proportion of the general population. Such sentiments spill over into politics. I saw some graffiti touching on this theme (“neighbours not toyrists” [sic]).

I won’t go into the political situation except to note that Greece has a long and strong tradition of radical thought and action. Police – with armoured vehicles and riot shields – were out in force on at least two occasions while I was there to deal with student demonstrations. Trade unions were also involved in the demonstrations.

There is widespread poverty and borderline living. Many beggars, some of them elderly; and people selling bags of vegetables etc. on the streets. In the area in which I was staying, there are dozens of depressing “mini-marts” selling the same limited range of groceries and halal products, businesses run for the most part – and patronized by – Muslim immigrants. Service with a scowl seemed to be their preferred approach – though they may, for all I know, have been very pleasant to their regular clientele.

While in Athens I needed to replace my sneakers and bought a new pair from a cluttered local shop-cum-warehouse run by a Chinese couple who import shoes and jackets from the People’s Republic. The mini-marts accept credit and debit cards, but this Chinese entrepreneur only took cash. The shoes I chose were marked €23.

“For you, 20 euro,” he said. A real businessman this one!

One of my high school teachers (his name was Lionel Lobstein) was said to speak six European languages, all with the same accent. He taught us social studies (geography and history) and later joined the Italian department at the local university. He was full of praise for Greek culture. They had their priorities right, he told us, valuing social intercourse and conversation over mundane chores, etc.. He routinely spent his annual holidays in Greece, sipping coffee and chatting in shaded courtyards (or so the story went). Later I latched on to the poems and novels of Lawrence Durrell, a British expatriate who was deeply immersed in the Mediterranean world.

Even allowing for nostalgic and literary distortions, I have the strong sense of a culture which – exposed to various external forces and (perhaps) internal contradictions – has sadly lost its way.

In the Blue Mountains

Having given up the apartment in central Melbourne which I had leased for more than a decade, I have been staying for the most part in hotels – and intend to continue to do so. The general plan is to travel in a slow and leisurely way as I consider my longer term options. One thing I need to do is to develop a shortlist of retirement destinations, places where – when (or if!) the travelling stops – I could live contentedly and within my means.

I won't go into the details of my personal finances here but the general picture is that I have cash savings and a few stock market investments which generate a modest income. Part of my strategy is to simplify my life as much as possible and (without going to extremes) to minimize "overheads", i.e. income taxes and monthly or annual fees and charges.

I am currently staying in the Blue Mountains, about 100 km from Sydney, and intend to move on soon and spend some time in Southeast Asia and, later, Europe.

I have never been all that fond of the Australian bush and feel more comfortable by the sea or in certain urban environments. But the landscapes here, as well as the flora and fauna, are certainly unique and worth taking in. I recently went with a friend on a relatively challenging walk near Blackheath.

The photos were taken on the Centennial Glen walking trail by Anne Williams.

Certain towns in the Blue Mountains were fashionable resorts in the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Foreign tourists still come (to Katoomba and Leura, for example) but the towns and villages of the region, though still reasonably prosperous, have clearly undergone profound social and economic changes over the years, not all of them positive.

This old black and white snap, taken in 1942, bears witness to a family connection with this part of the world.

My mother (nearest to the camera, 17 years old) is holidaying with an older sister and friends in Katoomba.

Inertia

Even at the best of times I am not a model of decisive action, but I have to say that it feels more and more difficult to set goals and maintain personal momentum in the present environment.

It’s not just me. The bureaucracy in which we are all increasingly enmeshed is failing. A wave of indolence or “quiet quitting” is washing over the white-collar workforce.

Case in point: earlier this year I applied for a new passport. Since then I have rung the issuing office twice. Twice they apologized; twice I was told that the process would be fast-tracked. Nothing. No communication from them. When I handed in my application I was assured that the passport would be ready within six weeks. I have now been waiting more than four months.

I had hoped to begin my travels some time ago. The lockdowns, curfews and travel bans may finally have been lifted but it is difficult to make concrete plans without a passport – especially when one has no clear idea of what is causing the delay. Only when I have the new passport in my hands will I think seriously about booking flights, etc..

This passport business is relatively trivial – in my case at least. No grave implications. But it is certainly emblematic, and indicative of wider problems.

Here is a short list of some of my current (non-travel-related) preoccupations…

Health concerns are always there, even in the absence of (known) serious illness or disease. This is particularly so as one ages. Personally I am prone to health-related anxieties and, consequently, try to minimize my interactions with Dr. Google and the medical profession. So long as I can function more or less normally and have no new or alarming symptoms, I feel justified in putting my focus on other things than the inner workings of my body. One health-related area I do take an interest in, however, is preventive medicine, and especially the effect of diet on health.

I had expected (or hoped) that the SARS-CoV-2 virus would be fading from the scene by now but it continues to spread. Worse still, bad news is coming through on the long-term effects of COVID-19. If (as seems to be the case) the virus was a product of gain-of-function research conducted under the auspices of various national governments and official agencies, this is not only a tragedy of epic proportions (it obviously is that) but also a scandal which, by further undermining trust in ruling elites, will have deep and lasting political implications.

Though they don’t concern me in a direct or personal way, I am following geopolitical developments closely. I am concerned by the belligerent stances being assumed by all major powers, and by the lack of leadership and intelligent diplomacy being exhibited by major Western powers.

More generally, I am appalled by the transformation of our media into an integrated propaganda machine. News has always been propaganda to an extent but the balance between propaganda and hard (factual or critical) content varies from time to time and from place to place. What we are seeing now in the West is somewhat reminiscent of old communist and fascist models and of World War 2-era American and British newspapers and newsreels, etc.. But arguably the situation is worse now than it was back then because of the intrusive nature of current technologies. The combination of digital news services and social media has produced an integrated – and insidious – framework of communication which is being effectively exploited by governments, powerful corporations and other favoured organizations.

As a preparation for possible future writing on social, economic and geopolitical themes, I have been reading (or rereading) the work of some early 20th-century thinkers, including Louis Rougier. Born in Lyon in 1889, Rougier was an intellectual historian and social philosopher who, unlike many intellectuals, had a good grasp of fundamental social, political and economic principles. In his best writings (from the 1930s and 1940s especially) he takes a refreshingly down-to-earth and non-ideological approach to political and economic questions. More on him later perhaps.

Slow progress

I have been making slow progress on preparations and planning since I wrote that "Travel plans" piece two months ago. The timetable remains more or less the same. It may slip however.

With respect to blogging etc., rather than trying to set up a new site in order to build a bigger audience I have decided – for the time being at least – to consolidate. I intend to post more frequently here and (identical material) at my WordPress site, adopting a more informal approach. Shorter pieces.

My association with Daniel Kaufman and his Electric Agora will probably continue though I have no new essays in the pipeline. With respect to my EA-based podcast, Culture and Value, eight episodes are currently available. They have attracted some attention (and so far about 4000 listens/downloads in toto). But I am not adding new episodes at the moment. (This is for various reasons – including the fact that the podcast has yet to be made available on Apple Podcasts.)

Travel plans

I am in the process of reorienting my life. Over the years I have been caught up, as everybody is, in various projects, commitments, entanglements and responsibilities (or perceived responsibilities). Some of these commitments limited my opportunities for extensive travel, or at least the sort of travel I desired.

In recent years I wanted to ensure that I would be able to visit my ailing mother on a regular basis. She was in a nursing home in Melbourne. So I leased a place fairly close by, a small ninth-floor apartment in Melbourne’s old Chinatown district.

Unfortunately, due to draconian COVID-driven bans on visiting, I was not allowed to see my mother for months on end or liaise in the normal way with nursing staff during 2021. In previous years she had fared pretty well, fighting off occasional acute illnesses and defying predictions by physicians and nurses of her imminent demise. But last year a pressure sore got out of hand and became infected and she went into serious decline. She died in January.

My apartment lease expires in early August and my intention at the moment is not to renew it. I have not decided on where I will be based. The plan, for the moment, is just to travel. Initially to Singapore, and then further afield. This itinerant lifestyle could continue for quite some time if my health and finances allow.

My intention is not to be moving constantly but rather to stay for extended periods (months) at most destinations. I will probably continue to post material online. But how my lifestyle changes will affect the extent, nature or focus of this activity is uncertain.

Naturally there would now be some scope for doing anecdotal travel-related pieces, impressions of various places and so on. But to what end? Before the restrictions of the last couple of years, most people I know traveled widely and on a regular basis. I didn’t. I am the least-frequent flyer I know.

I am aware that the old fogey, Rip Van Winkle angle could easily become tedious, so I'll need to put strict limits on my conversational and other references to four-engined turboprops, Boeing 707s and descriptions of how places have changed. (When I last visited Athens, for example, the Third Hellenic Republic was in its initial stages and the time of the generals was still fresh in everybody’s memory. But, as I say, this is not really a line I want to pursue.)

On places, one has impressions, one makes judgments. But is there any need to talk publicly about them? Opinions and impressions are a dime a dozen; and reportage makes sense if you are being paid for it or if you are pushing some narrative or other which you deem to be important, but not otherwise as far as I can see.

There is always the option of getting involved in scholarly work again or in serious writing – possibly on political themes or international relations, possibly on more theoretical topics. It all depends on various factors (whom I meet, where I am based, how my interests develop, geopolitical developments, etc.).

Whatever happens, my preoccupation with culture and value will continue, and exposing myself to different cultures (to the extent that urban cultures have not converged into a boring sameness) will at the very least constitute a kind of experiment in compatibility.

There are still things to do here (sorting papers, legal matters, getting a new passport, etc.). I hope that it will all go smoothly and that my transition to a new way of life occurs without my having to face any further personal stresses or challenges.

Looking to the broader context, it goes without saying that social, political and economic stresses will continue and probably become more intense. To what extent I will be trying to chronicle or wanting to comment on these things in the future I do not know.

Nor have I decided what communication platforms to rely on during my travels. I may even decide, given the state of the world and the direction in which things are moving, that I want to follow the example of many of my literary and intellectual heroes and hunker down somewhere far from the madding crowd.

While I am in traveling mode, however, I would be very open to meeting – for a coffee, say – anyone who may have come across my blog posts or essays over the years, as well as those internet friends with whom I have maintained more direct contact.

[This is an abridged and modified version of an essay which appeared recently at The Electric Agora.]

Nobody is to blame

Some time ago I wrote a short piece, prompted by my reading of some novels by Patricia Highsmith, on the way new technologies have in recent years eroded our sense of place. Highsmith not only had a remarkable insight into human psychology – and psychopathy – but also a strong sense of the ambience of particular geographic locations.

Despite the advent of new and culturally disruptive technologies during the middle years of the 20th century, the sense of place had not yet been significantly eroded, and the communication technologies of that time – letters, telegrams, long-distance operator-assisted telephone calls, and newspapers (though not so much radio and TV) – feature prominently in Highsmith's stories. In fact, they often serve to underscore the sense of her (often solitary) characters being in a particular location.

Though it has been an important feature of human consciousness from the beginning, I would argue that this strong sense of being in a particular place is, due to the advent of new digital technologies, as well as other factors related to the increased ease and affordability of travel, simply no longer possible. The new technologies have undermined it – and something has been lost.

In a nutshell, communication and travel between distant places has become so easy that the uniqueness of place has been fatally undermined.

It might be objected that I am overreacting to current changes. But I don't think so. We have passed a threshold of sorts. I am talking about a confluence of factors. And something very profound and significant has occurred.

A related issue is the way digital devices are currently affecting how young brains develop. The effects are evident everywhere, but I won't bang on about it as, for example, Susan Greenfield has been inclined to do. It's a losing battle. Nothing can be done, and all the nasty neurological details will, no doubt, come gradually to light.

So I can't help thinking with some nostalgia of times past.

Of a very long, difficult but magical journey I made as a small child with my mother and two siblings on a series of turboprop aircraft. Of letters. Of newspapers as they used to be. Of the heady experience of being in a great city or a fabled or exotic place.

These things are no longer possible in the way they once were. But, as Tom Stoppard said not so long ago, speaking of similar matters: "Nobody is to blame. It is progress in operation."