Reaction to constant fear and powerlessness: why do we like to give advice so much

Natasha Kiselyova, writer

Today I clearly understood what I was so unaccustomed to in Germany during these months. From advice. And this is such happiness.

There is a small benefit when you live in a healthy and free country. You don't have to love "all her rattles" and "sing all her songs." In general, when you like something or someone, it is not total and comprehensive. Unless you're 12, of course. You see flaws and accept them. Drawbacks are okay. Everyone has them.

Russia has two eternal external enemies - America and NATO. They, according to the authorities, should unite the nation according to the system “Against whom we are friends”, but they don’t unite anything.

Germany also has two common eternal enemies. They are, however, internal, not external. These are railways (DB) and bureaucracy. There are a ton of memes, stories, jokes and cartoons about them. There are legends about them. And it really brings people together. And when you talk about your bureaucratic adventures, everyone understands perfectly what you are supporting. Because they understand that you are still new and have not lived here for a million years.

None of my acquaintances in Dresden ever told me what to do. Nobody told me what to do. Nobody accused me of anything. No one said get out of our Germany in your Russland. They told me how they faced similar situations and that there really is such a problem. The people who work with the papers here consider themselves to be the highest clergy. We laughed about this situation, and I wrote what I thought was a funny post. It seemed to Natasha, it seemed. Here all the serious people gathered, where are you with your jokes and a pig snout in a Kalash row.

Surprisingly, in the comments I was even accused of not knowing the correct name of some kind of Ministry. And since I fled here, I was obliged, apparently, to study the history of Germany on the plane, all the laws and names of all institutions. My friends in Dresden don't know not only the names of the ministries, they don't know the name of the President. This is information they don't need. And it's absolutely ok, you choose what you need and what you don't. And you may not know the names of the Departments.

How unsolicited advice arises. They have one nanny-nurse with victimblading. And her name is Fear.

When people at their core feel powerless and have no influence on anything, they want to influence at least something, they choose to advise how others should live. It's safer than solving your own problems. And it nourishes the inner God so cool, you decide the fate of people, what a fine fellow. Just Bruce Almighty. You are very important. Very necessary. You exist. Your life is no longer a worthless chain of days, because you know when some unknown girl should write a book and where to blame her.

Unsolicited advice, like all unsolicited advice, is a violation of your boundaries. It's like if someone on the street comes up to you and starts to paint your lips or make you bouffant, because it seems to him that you feel better that way. Because you don't know what's best for you. You are a baby in the body of a forty year old woman.

When you tell a person what, how and when to do it, you put him in a position below yourself. And you do it only for yourself. You are smarter, more experienced, you know how to do it. That is, you say this not to a person, but to yourself, that you are not such a moron and you will never get into such a situation. You soothe the insecure, inexperienced and unintelligent within you. Well, hush, hush, we're not like that brown-eyed idiot. We would never have ended up in the camp, we would not have ended up in the hospital and the nurse would have smiled at us. We would know exactly what is right. Because we are cool, but this little lipped fool is not.

For some reason, it is not customary for us to be alive, it is not customary to experience and live our emotions and, in principle, life. If you feel like a second-class person, this does not mean that you are living this worldview and experience, but blaming someone for it. After all, feelings and emotions can only be cool and positive. And if not, then no one asked you, put on a smile and be patient. Here people (remark, in my experience, because whoever met me, otherwise it will start again) have a simpler attitude to this. You are fairly free to talk about your fatigue, insecurities, fears, anxieties, frustrations, and therapy. And that's why you don't feel like a broken part in your anxiety and depression. You feel normal. You feel that you are not the only one who does not know anything in this life, unlike the wise of everyone else.

“I am a bad advisor. For me, to give advice, in fact, always means to betray. Advice is a cowardly retreat before the future, which is the touchstone of our present. But only those who have a bad conscience are afraid of testing. A person who does not fulfill the tasks of his time. However, who exactly knows his task? Nobody". Franz Kafka.