One of the things that I've always liked ... no, admired ... about Germany has been its Reinlichkeit. For you non-German speakers, the word means something akin to "cleanliness", but it's more that orderly tidiness of things to which attention is paid, to the orderliness of one's surroundings. This isn't big on some cultural agendas, that's for sure, but though the Germans have often be made fun of for this "compulsion", everyone I've ever spoke to who has visited the place has remarked on it. You just can't help but notice.
And, I can't help but notice that it's slowly, and, I'm afraid, surely being beaten down. That's sad. Now that winter's more or less passed and it's only intermittently raining, I've noticed too many stretches of road on the daily commute that are littered. Now before you get all huffy about another tree-hugger or another pushy pedant, I'll tell you straight up why litter is bad: it's unnecessary. Not only is it unnecessary, it's thoughtless, and above all, it's ignorant.
It's unnecessary because we've come up with a wonderful series of inventions called the wastebasket, the trash bin, the trash receptacle, the dustbin, the garbage can, the dumpster. What is more, they're literally everywhere. So why does the trash have to go out the car window instead of where it belongs? It's thoughtless because it is evidence that whoever is doing it cannot be possibly thinking any further than his or her own bubble-like existence. It's ignorant because it presumes that someone else has nothing better to do than to clean up after some self-centered slob who is simply too lazy to put their stuff where it belongs.
I wish I knew how to get this to stop.
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