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Heretic Asks “Why?” or “Why not?”
Cultural & Political Differences Force Different Choices & Questions
Since I moved to Lithuania from the U$ in 1994, people often ask why I would do something like that. At 1st, I often joke around that I got onto the wrong plane; then I give them my take on what a hellhole I thought the U$ was & how much worse it was going to get. In recent years, if they’re at all aware of the shitstorm raging in the U$, they know whereof I speak.
Actually, I’m glad to have had the experience of growing up in the U$ because if I’d been living in Lithuania during the Soviet Era, I would have suffered immeasurably because of my driving need to live & to express myself authentically, fully, spontaneously. I would have likely stopped one of the 1st bullets fired by Stalin’s goons, & that would have halted my outspokenness & my heresies.
But maybe I would have grown up adapting to being a silent drone kissing the asses of all the bullies. That’s one of the most fascinating aspects of human life — we seldom know precisely how someone or something will turn out, though social & developmental psychology can give us major clues & lots of statistics. So much depends, however, on the conditions far beyond one’s genes, the immediate family, schools, or even the culture itself. Who knows how I would have turned out? Whatever might have been is mere conjecture…
