About Inadequacy and Exposure

H. hailed from an old Saxon family, a lineage so distinguished that not even the Stalinist juggernaut could erase its prestige. Despite being stripped of almost all material possessions, they were left with an annex of their house where, before the war, their servants had dwelled, transformed through a sinister alchemy into party and state functionaries. A grand maneuver. It was not a gesture of generosity or gratitude, but rather an edict from the powers-that-be, decreeing that H.’s family must survive to continue the craft that had defined them. From generation to generation, they understood the power of plants, which they turned into personalized remedies. There was no one in the small Transylvanian village who had not sought out the treatments of H.’s family. Everyone found healing and solace there.

The story is not about the family but about H., the last descendant, whose chronic ailment could not be treated by renowned healers. Seemingly without purpose, people loved and respected H. even more for this defeat in the face of destiny. They considered H.’s affliction a payment for the sins and deaths forcibly extracted from the community’s collective body. The elderly, in particular, revered H., more than his own parents, believing that H. was, if not God Himself, at least a faithful observer on Earth.

I was young when I met him, but with the mind of a child, I realized that his parents could have been his grandparents or even great-grandparents. He was over 30 years old, but he acted beyond his years. He did not get along with anyone. He operated by his own rules. He was not violent; he did not interact. He looked at you without seeing you. He was peculiar, without inspiring fear.

Perhaps no one would have known he existed if H. did not have the habit of standing naked at the window facing the road, his genitals on the windowsill, like a living, fat, and hairy statue. People passed by their house as if it were a storefront with an unkempt mannequin. No one was intrigued. There was nothing erotic about it. I often caught his parents seemingly dismantling him from the window and pulling him behind curtains, where no one knew what was happening. In fact, no one was interested in the dramatic and peculiar aspect of the family.

And as intriguing as the scene was in an extremely aseptic moral and social framework, not even the children commented on the shocking images, no matter how tempting it might have been as a subject for analysis and vociferation.

The exposed nudity of H. came to my memory one day as I was scrolling through the latest online posts of acquaintances. In reality, I don’t know most of them in the flesh, and of those I have met, many have become relics in the cemetery of long-term memory. Nevertheless, I find myself developing a new type of knowledge, visual, without contact. I know them, but I don’t know them, and if we were to meet in real life, I believe I would avoid any form of social interaction.

The new trend of exposing one’s personal life on the virtual stage has brought me back to an existential episode in which a part of me and the culture I was raised in now urge me to look away, to shield myself from the grotesque inadequacy. I cannot accept the excuse of adopting hybrid communication as a general practice if it nullifies an individual’s or a family’s privacy.

These are cries masked as expressions of loneliness and a sense of being lost in a story that does not fit anyone’s narrative. In vain, they seek attention.

Moral: A prestigious brand transcends its own imperfections.