Extended Family?(… turned into ramble, but still ok to read, I think…)
We’ve always talked about not feeling in-sync with the people around us. I have sometimes wondered how this effects our understanding of the concept ‘Family’. In my case – I grew only almost exclusively with my parents. As a child(6-10) I visited my grandparents in Germany every summer, but otherwise didn’t have any contact with them – especially during my teenage years. Actually, over a period of 5 years I hadn’t seen, spoke or written to my extended family. I lived in Monaco, Novosibirsk, and Gdynia in this time, and 3 years of these on my own(host family and boarding school).
Now, partially by coincidence, and partially by necessity, I live in the same area that my extended family from my mother’s side comes from, and I have quite a lot of contact with them.(Btw. they are all locally bred.) I find it very interesting to finally get to know them(of course, before I could already connect faces with names, but that was about it), and it’s very pleasent to finally be around people with whome I do share some very private similarities, habits that I guess you only pick up on in a family environment.
On the other side, I actually feel a lot more internal conflict when I am around them, than others. I feel an intense closeness to them, and a greater love than for any other people that I’ve met in my life(even though I have spent much less time with my family). But their lifestyle – is everything but mine – as good as the opposite.
The conflict I am feeling, that I want to ask you your opinions about is as follows: the sense of trust and mutual goodwill that exists within in my family is unique to any other community that I have experienced so far. It’s really something one could build on. The core values that they represent are very close to what I want to achieve in my life. The snag to it though, is that I will never be able to live their life, because I will never be able to achieve the same type of social integration that they have(as it applies to us all). Thus my family is actually a very strong argument against ‘TCK’, because they are an established, functioning community which is even ready to take me in and help me out. Only requirement though, is for me to repress my inter-cultural experience, and forget that I have ever lived in other countries. They even accept me with my own Third Culture and respect my different point of view on things, but they constantly tell me, I need to focus my thinking on that what is immediately around me, and forget the rest of the world.
I need to narrow down my priority from a global society, down to representing Germany. If I did that, I’d have a group of people who are ready to help me out, because they know I am willing to be part of them. They’d help me figure out how to settle down and fulfill my needs(since they are well acquainted with this area and society).
Hm… when I think about it, I’m also already quite well integrated in the fraternity I joined two years ago, and to a lesser degree, they also constitute a community that could help me achieve my needs based on reciprocity.
But I can’t! Whenever I think about prioritising one group of people over another, I see the faces of the friends that surrounded me when I was “the foreigner”. I can’t possibly categorically not think about their wellbeing, and only about the group that I pledge my allegiance to… but how else am I to find a society to belong to?
<Start Core Thoughts>
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MY FAMILY AND ME: I guess my conflict is, that I have very good conditions to settle down, put down roots, and a build a place for myself in a society, but because of my emotional attachment to other people around the world, I can’t bring myself to prioritize one group over another.
But then again, I believe that integrating yourself into a society is the only effective way to change it for the better – which is what we ultimately want, right? You have to gain someone’s trust by proving yourself, only then do they listen to you, and internalise what you tell them… and there is no TCK society(economically, legally, politically, culturally… which are what defines the relevance of a group, we are but a sub-culture with no significance in a wider social sense, we exist only in the heads of its members), so I have to chose from amongst those that do exist.
<End Core Thoughts>
I’d still be able to travel the world, but as a German, always seeking the wellbeing of this particular group, which in competitive times would mean that I’d have to fight other groups(economically, legally, politically,…). I can’t imagine myself doing that, even if it is a smaller evil to do a greater good in the long run. Being a TCK has taught me to open my heart for the people I meet no matter where I go. Changing into a German would mean, that as long as I’m not at the top of my social ladder, I serve the predefined values, rather than redefine them. That would mean, that at times, I’d have to close my heart, and follow orders… and I don’t see any way around it if I want to achieve something of a greater meaning!
It’s not that I have a problem with agressiveness, with fighting to succede(on an intellectual level). I’ve had enough experience with my attempts at be goodwilling to people, which ended in me being used and belittled, that I’ve decided to change my ways. Now if I notice that someone isn’t goodwilling to me, then I try not to shy away from using what I have(I guess my brains and character) to “beat them down”, before they do the same to me.
I find that ok when I deal with people whom I experience personally(although I know there are some who will argue against any agressiv thinking), but it’s different if someone else tells you to treat someone from the very beginning as an adversary…
Anyway.
I’d also be interested in hearing any of your own experiences with living far away from extended family, and then being intensively exposed to them.
(P.S. I’m very, very sorry, for writing such long posts, but there are so many thoughts I want to express, I hope you read at least some of it.)
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