Relative Something

I watched the movie Hurt Locker a couple of nights ago. Among the many scenes that pack a punch, there was one in particular, completely removed from the military battle zones, that really made an impression. In an attempt to avoid spoiling the movie for anyone reading who hasn’t seen it yet, I’ll make reference to a generic situation that happens all the time for combat soldiers. Those that survive and return home find their old life so entirely out of context it is near impossible to function.

Anyone returning from an extended absence, especially if they have been living in a foreign culture, will recognize a mild version of that same feeling of alienation from what was once the comfort of home. I can’t imagine how a soldier is able to accomplish returning from living a life of combat terror in a bleak and primitive setting, to the comforts of frivolous overindulgence found in our society. I’ve struggled with returning from simple camping trips from time to time. It is interesting that what were once the “comforts of home” can conversely appear as undesirable, or even to the extreme of being objectionable.

What is maybe even more fascinating to me, in the long run, is how I have pretty much always found that the disdain for the excesses that come across as annoying, fades away under the relentless onslaught of the return to a daily routine. All too soon I have re-acclimated myself to a state of dull obliviousness for the overabundance of self-indulgences present in our convenient lives. The contempt never lasts. However, if I found myself suddenly in the company of someone suffering a life of scarcity, I would quickly become aware again of the embarrassment of riches we tend to take for granted.

I guess it is kind of like that frog in a pan of water being heated. If you throw him in when it is already hot, he jumps right back out. If you put him in when it is cool and heat it over time, he adjusts and stays in even after it becomes too hot. When everyone I find myself surrounded by tends to take our lifestyle for granted, I tend to fall into a similar pattern.