292 lines
15 KiB
HTML
292 lines
15 KiB
HTML
<meta name="title" content="The Straightjacket of Indecision">
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<meta name="slug" content="straightjacket-of-indecision">
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<meta name="createdAt" content="2026-01-18T20:00:00.000Z">
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<meta name="updatedAt" content="2026-01-18T20:00:00.000Z">
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<meta name="tags" content="">
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<meta name="guid" content="5d3b68de-35fb-48da-8caf-8f6f1f6398f5">
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<article>
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<p>
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Over the last six or seven years living abroad in the faraway place of
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Munich, Germany, I’ve often wondered when, or even whether, I might return
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home to Melbourne, Australia. Even though I never spent much time
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contemplating my distant future, my mother certainly didn’t let me forget
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that she wished to have me back at home sooner rather than later. I'd
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listen to her talk in absolutes every return visit, “when you’re back
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next year…,” and so on. I shrugged it off as just motherly love. I'm
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in Germany, Mum, and I’m staying here for now!
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</p>
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<p>
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Despite this, the thought in the back of my mind that this overseas
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journey would in all likelihood be ephemeral proved to be a constant
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burden. Wherever I went, whichever decision I made, the immense doubt
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haunted me. Before the COVID pandemic, I had originally planned
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to study my Master’s, probably work a couple of years at a local
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company “in the industry”, and then return home ideally feeling fulfilled and
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satisfied. Like I had earnt some kind of imaginary certificate of
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intercultural aptitude. Secretly however, I imagined falling in love
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with a beautiful German girl and living in the idyllic Bavarian
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countryside, happily ever after, even if I was unwilling to admit it
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even to myself.
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</p>
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<p>
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But given the retreat of pandemic-related restrictions and regulations was
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so gradual, as were too the many changes in my life circumstances
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in-between, it never seemed like quite the right time to draw a line in the
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sand. It would seem I became the frog in boiling water.
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</p>
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<p>
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Finally, maybe around late 2023, things seemed to have settled. I chose to
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move into my own apartment, after my roommate moved in with his
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girlfriend. It became clear to me that I would soon have to give serious
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thought as to whether I wanted to return home, or if I wanted to seriously
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commit to “being German.” The weight I was carrying was growing
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heavier, and somehow I knew this was slowing me down. I just didn't
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realise how much exactly.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the first few years here, sure—it never made much sense to paint my
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student dorm room or invest in expensive furniture, even once I began earning a
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full-time salary—I figured I probably wouldn’t be here much longer,
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anyway. But as the years went by and the dorm rooms became my own rental
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apartments, I could feel the desire to invest in long-term commitments grow
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stronger within me. Actually bringing any of them to fruition, on the other
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hand, seemed impossible. I could hardly bring myself to buy a
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dishwasher for the longest time: moving countries could have always been
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right around the corner, so I had better not waste the money and effort.
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</p>
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<p>
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Never knowing when I was going to leave, I froze in the face of more
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important decisions, even ones that might have promised to greatly improve
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my quality of life, and that seemed frankly banal to outsiders. It plagued
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the back of my mind when searching for the motivation to meet people or go
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on dates. What if I eventually want to go home? Will she lose interest in me
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because I’m a flight risk?
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</p>
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<p>
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Whenever I would meet someone in my daily life, they would inevitably
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ask me whether I would like to stay in Germany forever or if I plan to
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move home at some stage. Over the years, I learnt to come with
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pre-prepared answers that suggested I was comfortable with my
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open-ended life abroad. But I wasn’t. I felt trapped, like I couldn’t
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go anywhere. Like I couldn’t start any meaningful projects. I wanted to
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take on so much more and feel resolute in each step. But I felt
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suffocated by the idea that the rug would soon be pulled out from under
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my feet.
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</p>
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<p>
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I did however eventually start voicing the idea that, as long as I
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don’t meet anybody here that I come to love so much that I simply must
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stay, it would be better for me to go home. That was the beginning of
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the end, I suppose, but the thought was so limp in spirit that it
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hardly made any difference in my life. Instead it was the perfect
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excuse to remain undecided: at any moment, the love of my life could
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waltz around the corner. Ironically, this straitjacket of indecision
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all but prevented me from doing anything about my bachelorhood.
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</p>
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<p>
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Things did improve; I grew adamant that I would break down old habits
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that were once born of helplessness. I found it increasingly easier to
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“just do things,” as the chronically online say, but there was an upper
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limit to their magnitude. Such things as buying more expensive home
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furnishings or making slightly more long-term commitments became easier
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(think “one year” rather than “a couple of months”), but nonetheless I
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stillfelt tremendously stuck.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the summer of 2025, my parents visited and stayed with me for two
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months, during which we went on many European trips alongside my daily
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life in Munich. Afterwards, I joined them on the plane ride home and
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visited Melbourne. This time, it was outside of the usual Christmas
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holiday period so as to really get a sense of how life back home had
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changed.
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</p>
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<p>
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I stayed a month, bringing the total time spent with family and friends
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to three months, which was a lot of time for me after having lived for
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so long abroad. Alhoutgh I had visited for a month almost every year,
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this time around felt a bit different. I felt like I was actually back
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home, and not just peering through the window. Maybe it was the time of
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year, maybe because of the high school reunion I attended, or maybe
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even just due to how much time had passed since COVID. Whatever it was,
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those three months made their mark. After saying our goodbyes at the
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airport, I headed to stand in line at the first security checkpoint.
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After turning the corner, I lost sight of my parents, and my heart
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sank.
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</p>
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<p>
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For the first time in seven years, something felt wrong. I didn’t want
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to leave any more. I realised that my time in Munich was over. After
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two years of deliberating over the minutiae of my life and where I
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lived, the epiphany seemed to come in an instant. It was emotional.
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There was no logical breakthrough. No intellectual victory. I was just
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homesick. After six years, no less.
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</p>
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<p>
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Once I arrived back in Munich, everything about this charming place
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became grossly annoying overnight. The northern winter annoyed me. The
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people annoyed me. My job annoyed me. My entire surroundings were so
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fastidious that I couldn’t wait to get home. Even the German language
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that has brought me so much joy to learn, to which I effortlessly
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dedicated so much time and interest; even it became a nuisance. I
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wanted my native tongue back. I wanted effortless freedom of expression
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back. I was imprinted with a culture when I was younger and I just
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wanted it back.
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</p>
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<p>
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Paradoxically, though, I felt fully liberated all of a sudden. Free to
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do whatever I wanted. Having made the decision to pack up and leave
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filled me with such a profound sense of direction that everything else
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was able to just slide into place, as if a circuit had been completed.
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</p>
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<p>
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By forfeiting many potential futures for just one that I could count
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on, the organisation of the rest of my life was able to spontaneously
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emerge. I guess I always sensed this would happen, but I seriously
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underestimated the ramifications. A cataclysmic domino effect resolved
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a hierarchy of assumptions about who I was, where I was, and what I was
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doing, running incredibly deep. Before, I was basically floundering.
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Even though I could feel that I knew what feeling I wanted out of
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life—and indeed I strove to work towards it&mash;I was
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nonetheless totally directionless. And it was painful. Not so any more.
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</p>
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<p>
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The irony of all this is that by making this decision, I suddenly feel
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like <em>I know what I’m doing here right now</em> and can arrange the
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coming months accordingly. I feel freer that ever to date people in
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Germany and with even more intention than I did before. I feel like I
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have permission to take on any domestic projects I feel like. Isn’t
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that strange? I sure thought so. In all honesty I expected the opposite
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outcome. But now there’s a timeline: I can see how it all fits into the
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grand plan.
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</p>
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<hr>
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<p>
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There are more reasons to move home, however, than just family and
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friends, as important as they are to me. They were simply the more
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obvious tip of the iceberg, as it were.
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</p>
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<p>
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Trying to live in two cultures at once results in a kind of purgatory,
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and I suppose I never quite committed to living in one or the other.
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But over the last few years, especially upon contemplating the
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physiological and psychological impact of learnt helplessness, it
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became clear that there was a deep desire in me to self-actualise, and
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that it should be given more serious attention. During my preteen and
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early teen years, I was a prolific user of the Adobe suite, I loved to
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draw, write stories, and produce music. I loved to make silly games and
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build worlds with atmosphere. It was here where I was completely in my
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element, and I sense deep within myself that I need to reprise these
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pursuits. Alas, it would seem I can hardly find the time (or if I am
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honest, the energy) to invest in them. I have mostly blamed this on my
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day job, but it has become increasingly obvious that I’m mostly
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being stifled simply by <em>living alone in a foreign country</em>.
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</p>
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<p>
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The purpose of a culture is apparently to obviate the need to think
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about what to do as much as possible so as to free up energy for more
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niche specialisation. Having to think about how to greet somebody, or
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what is appropriate to do in public versus in private, or even what
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amount and what type of conversation is appropriate, and with
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whom—these are all things that are imparted simply by virtue of
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growing up in a particular culture. They are acquired in similar
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fashion to language (and some might say that these two are indeed
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exactly the same thing). If it weren’t for these effortless
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assumptions, it might become an exhausting moment-by-moment decision
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making process, in perpetuity. The broader cultural context can take
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care of much of this, both in the aforementioned sense of traditions
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and customs as well as by making use of particular industrial
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specialisations, such as manufacturing and the provision of services
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and application of expertise. This way, you can focus on you, so you
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can “relax into complexity”.
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</p>
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<p>
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The imprinting of childhood seems especially important. It's possible,
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and certainly proven in the case of language acquisition, that children
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growing up with multiple cultural contexts in parallel find the
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context-switching relatively painless and easy, if not equally as easy
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as the monoculturally reared child. These additional cultures are like
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an extra sub-context within a single culture. Being “German” is, for
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example, another social language, with its own grammar, akin to
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attending church versus going to a bar. And it, too, has multiple
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manifestations.
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</p>
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<p>
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But I am not a child of Germany. Neither is German my native tongue. I
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may have long been a C2 speaker, and indeed, I live my life basically
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incognito unless I explicitly mention my background—no one really
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notices I’m not from around here. Yet no matter how good my language
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skills get, this mismatch still presents as an extra layer of
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abstraction. For the programmers out there: I do not feel like I’m
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running on “bare metal” like I do back home. The extra latency becomes
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cumulatively exhausting. I’m running in an interpreter, playing life on
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hard mode, when the opportunity to compile to machine code and switch
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to normal mode (or even easy) is right at my fingertips.
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</p>
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<p>
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I previously described my circumstances as a purgatory, and this is an
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apt word to exemplify the cultural incongruencies. The word itself is
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frequently used—but only in English speaking cultures—in a
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looser sense to refer to a state of suffering that is almost always
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temporary, before a type of finalising “decision” relieves oneself of
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it. This is not so in other languages. Whilst the word and idea of a
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purgatory do exist in German (<em>Fegefeuer</em>), they don’t in this
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metaphorical sense. Many other types of analogies, turns of phrases,
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and cultural metaphors used in everyday life don't neatly map to one
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another (even though some do, thanks to the more remotely shared
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cultural and linguistic history).
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</p>
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<p>
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I’ve come to believe that you might have to fully relinquish one
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cultural context for another in order to remove the extra cognitive
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burden. That would entail essentially “giving up” Australia once and
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for all to stay in Germany and focus on more specialised pursuits. Upon
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reflection, I think I really did do this for a few years, whilst I was
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still enthralled by the joy of learning a new language to proficiency,
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but its novelty soon faded.
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</p>
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<p>
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When I use my computer, I always have two keyboard layouts active,
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depending on what I’m doing. One for writing German prose and
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messaging, and another with my “native” layout for everything else. I
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originally figured this two-pronged approach would make things easier,
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but really, it's constant chaos. Forever having one foot in each door
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is the same kind of chaos.
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</p>
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<p>
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As such, it now seems obvious to me that I have to return to a single
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keyboard layout and go home. If I want to “relax into complexity,” then
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I must free up as much energy as possible, and in making this decision
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I can feel another entanglement of helplessness slowly unravel.
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</p>
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<p>
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And this time, it’s a big one.
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</p>
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</article>
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