The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

We've been in the States for more than a month--I think I'm starting to experience reverse culture shock. It seems like psychologists and people who've been through such things prefer the term "stress" to "shock" and I'd have to fall into that group. So I'm going to use stress rather than shock not to be snobbish but because it more accurately portrays the process. When we were preparing to move to Vienna, we were introduced to five stages of culture stress. I can't remember them, but the Wikipedia page on culture shock only lists three stages.

The last week has been really stressful, which has coincided nicely with recurring thoughts I've been having about Vienna--it's been in my head in a lot. Until last week, it was absent from my thoughts, for the most part. I feel really judgmental of the U.S. and everything going on here. The politics, the 24 hour news channels, the morons making NFL draft predictions, the wasteful lifestyles.

There are many reasons why it was good for us to return to the U.S. but I guess I find myself wishing, not necessarily that I was back in Vienna, but that the U.S. was a little more like Austria. In some ways, I feel myself slipping into a more self-centered lifestyle than what I had in Vienna. I resent that. Life is Vienna, as in much of Europe, is much more moderate than the States. There's a lot of extravagance here that I want to avoid. For instance, I found myself recently thinking that I needed a plasma screen television. In Vienna we didn't own a television and had planned to maintain a life without TV once we returned to the U.S. but I feel myself slipping on that one. I don't want to, but it's tempting. Once I have a television, how long until I have a surround sound? The temptation to live in extravagance is much greater here than in Vienna and I enjoyed (largely) avoiding it.

I suspect this will pass given a little time. It passed when we moved to Vienna, so it will pass once again.