Algimantas RUSTEIKA: About disposable soups and the world – Respublika.lt

And have you ever seen a saleswoman of a large shopping center smiling, with the eyes of a living, breathing person in this world, at least a well-groomed head, minimally combed and without a cheap rubber “ponytail”, with any traces of makeup? That avoidance of eye contact, those red hands with unkempt nails, the frightened, gray-mouse mannerisms, the pale, expressionless faces and the virtual note shining on the forehead: “Go all of you n…x”?

And I saw! Once in the whole thirty years of Independence, in Aleksot’s “Senukai”! She smiled, laughed, was no longer young, but beautiful and even answered jokes! Unable to bear it, I loudly congratulated her and myself on my discovery (“People, look, the seller of “Old People” is smiling!”), the whole row came to life, faces lit up, people laughed good-naturedly.

Well, it’s an unfortunate misunderstanding, and it’s been half a year since then. And all saleswomen in shopping malls look like clerks in the Buchenwald office or just brought from reanimation. Do you say it’s oppressive, tiring, the work is hard? Without a doubt. You say despair about prospects, no future – just work and sleep? Of course yes.

But others are also oppressed, and in other places we all work hard, and in other places there is little hope, but I don’t see this kind of pampering – tired, sometimes exhausted from work, but alive people, not zombies. Apparently, some Lithuanian, national virus has already been activated, some pseudo-philosophical insanity of mediocrity who got rich by chance.

Well, because of the modern approach to customers, it was a couple of weeks ago, one warm Saturday, I took care of myself at a private clinic on Savanorių Avenue. We drove past, we said, we will stop by for a blood test, after all, it is a private clinic, it will be done soon. We sit down in the luxurious reception area, there is such a business-like silence, another man also looks at the screen with an embarrassed face. Everywhere is shiny, the interior just glows in the sun, the work itself, around eleven.

Five minutes go by, ten. There is nothing. Around the corner is an open office, the reception girl is making coffee in the corridor, asking loudly to her colleagues what to do with milk. He comes to the reception room, rummages in the drawer and spills, we are Invisible People. Around the corner, a discussion begins about what kind of disposable soup to make from a packet, how an acquaintance from a long time ago is doing. Another ten minutes pass.

We looked at each other, well, we certainly won’t make a scandal, and I started to laugh – we left, we just ran away with our private medicine. While sitting in the car, I think: the owners should know how they work. I find myself on the Internet, I dial, the voice of the cat prompts: press one, press two – only beep beep – and I am already connected to the Kaunas reception, where we have just been, but of course no one answers. Thank you for coming and have a nice day.

One commenter explained to me: you are not writing about anyone, there must be someone to blame and what to do! It won’t happen here. I will not blame some greedy employers who steal from the state, nor some lazy workers who steal from the employer, nor some authorities who steal from everyone and from the state. I will not blame some accusers who blame everything, for whom it is just a form of excuse, nor some rescuers, for whom rescuing drowning people is a business plan.

I’m talking about the revived era of socialist realism, repeating worn-out success stories. Work and life are difficult, just getting lost is difficult and not easy, you are tormented by the hopelessness of everyday life, worry about the future of yourself and your children, the state and the nation – that means you are abnormal or at least a loser!

You can’t accept the injustice, the unconscionable life, the general indifference and the atmosphere of fear, when open conversations settle in kitchens? So you are a pessimist and a lover of negativity, listening to enemy propaganda and longing for the shoes of the occupier!

We will give you advertisements, crackling cellophane life, dull entertainment and even duller shows, tales of kisiel rivers with crisp banks and smart horizons of endless possibilities! And the saleswoman of the shopping center looks at those endless horizons and sees only work, the few minutes that the guard spends to eat or go to the toilet. Sleep, endless fatigue, passing years and everything else you want, but you don’t see any possibilities.

And every year, more and more young people come down to reality, wanting everything at once, as in the fairy tales. Requiring a salary to buy good wheels and take out a home loan in half a year. A person who knows his rights to the last detail, the amount of coffee and one-time soup breaks owned and not owned.

Every employer will confirm – a real employee who is worth anything and can achieve anything in life comes at the age of thirty, having changed five or fifteen places, not finding fairy tales and realizing that there is no Santa Claus. We ourselves raise crowds of scumbags, to whom everything must be served quickly, we instill in them illusions and we are surprised when they follow our suggestions, live according to them and suffer from disappointments.

We no longer need a hardened age resistant to the nonsense of a struggling youth who understands that nothing is easy, that life consists of difficulties and problems, solving which only moves forward. Give us the quiet conformists and the “temporaries” of the adult world, the government loyalists and the career powerhouses who change opinions with the direction of the wind.

The world of fairy tales, endless shallow entertainment, the right to be idiots and dependents is illusory and, despite all efforts to make it real, sooner or later collapses, bringing misfortunes, depressions, escapes into stupor, hatred and general indifference. An individual person can realize and wake up, the society that has accepted such a life cannot.

We don’t want to sacrifice anything for our beliefs and goals, we just wait for praise, gifts and comforts. In the clash of civilizations comes the power of faith, which will sacrifice anything for its beliefs and divinity and perceives death as a gift to the righteous. Billions are coming for whom difficulties, problems and the daily work of overcoming them is a way of life, soon to produce everything in our homes.

There will be no mercy in this fight, only tactical maneuvers. The cultures of the lazy, the lazy and the dependent do not and will not stand a chance in the world of the future. We are retreating on all fronts, a millimeter a day. And only the blind do not see it.