Even just acknowledging the division, anger and discord in all the social layers surrounding us, slowly, if we are not careful, it is infectious. It either pushes one into depression, or it hardens the heart and makes one to respond the same.
I listened to an hour long speech given by Obama last week. It is the only political thing I had the nerve to listen to. And he was hopeful and eloquent, honest and precise. It brought some sense and sanity into chaos. He pointed out the paranoia, the division instigated by fear, and the mockery and thievery which prevails more and more shamelessly in the highest places. Romania and US, my two countries I belong to as a citizen, both have lost their ways. It’s not hopeless but it’s hard to whiteness.
It’s Fall and the traffic in Cluj continues to intensify and life during school year become more chaotic and stressful, so we feel the pain of it.
Even so, I concluded that assuming positive intent is what will keep us sane. When the staggering number of absent minded drivers (inevitably paired with aggressive ones) seems to grow even more, it feels hopeless. So what are we going to do with the drivers who cut you off, who push you off the road so they don’t get into head-on collisions, when cars are parked in main lanes, when the manholes are yet again, the tenth time this year, repaved around. When lanes are not properly marked, and turn lanes are optional, people citing you off in roundabouts, or squeezing next to you in a roundabout on one lane. There is little to no curtesy in traffic. People come from other cities with a different ethic on the road – accidents happen all the time, and to paraphrase a recent visitor professor moved to Sweden, he said: “every time you reach your destination you feel that you dodged death.”
I am seriously considering taking J to kindergarten by bus. It takes three times longer, but it may be worth it.
Conrad is taking a sabbatical from driving. If you grow up in California, moving to Romania can be an attack to all your senses. And time doesn’t fix it or builds immunity, instead it wears you down. It wears him down. The blatant illegalities which are treated with a shoulder shrug or a turn of head by everyone else, eventually causes you do doubt the sanity of the world, life and what the heck are we still doing here.