Smile!

Smiling is part of being happy. Or just keeping a positive attitude. Looking into life is also taking a peak at our future so, better to take it with a smile. Don't you think? As a habit out of good disposition and stubbornness or plain happiness I smile most of the time. Reflection of my current way of seeing life and what lies ahead. Life is a gift, I can't think of any other way to take it. That's why I can't understand why the common unsmile, thankfully not so much in younger generations, occurs.

I look at the human faces and I see smile wrinkles. But inverted. Sad or not, seriousness is mandatory and no expression of any feeling is allowed. In fact, I had a game with my wonderful girlfriend during Christmas. Each time we went out to do our shopping we counted the smiles on the faces we crossed. For a morning shopping the average was seven. As a shop seller has to please clients, many smiles could be disqualified. As an example, how is it not possible to get the Christmas spirit going; even atheists should be carried away by the global good mood. I only saw those same faces happy with some Glühwein in their hands. Otherwise it was with a sausage and/or a beer. Of course this is not a rule and hopefully many (but not so many) locals smile. I'm not sure how well they are seen by their peers but I get the feeling that showing emotions is a sign of weakness. Especially good ones. Last time I saw that was in last day V episode. In a typical day I'm on the tram to work and I can't see signs of life in there, almost no sounds, just unsmiling commuters. At any time of the day, this is the same. Except in the late trains when the alcohol speaks louder and tongues untie. Then I can hear laughs, speeches, teasing, verbal aggression, a kind of a tutti frutti of emotions long constrained behind the curtains of an imaginary ward. In this little city, I could make some parallelisms with movies like Gattaca and Equilibrium (except for the priesthood style). This apparent lack of emotions leads me to think people are not feeling anything. I wonder some times if they are happy. Could they? Can they now?

On the opposite side we have the "too loud", "making noises" and "talking all the time". That's the Ausländer squad. For me it is disturbing to see excessive smile and loudness also, but a middle point would be appreciated. I understand better why foreign women are so much appreciated here. They smile, laugh and well, behave "normally". The way I see it, most of people are attracted to happy others. So if sad faces are up to make any possible attempt of social interaction to go away - congratulations, it works!