Eichenblätterlied

I dreamt of a world of control. Of elitism. Cold, monochrome visions of dark sculptures against a pale grey sky.
Martial industrial. A blanket of iron. I dreamed an authoritarian dream, and i was not the favoured class.

Prisons. Control. Excellence. The Ideal. The New citizen, whose vision was that of a pure bred dominator with just a sliver of morality. Relentless. Cocky. Cheerful. Capable. Ingenious, industrious. Charming. Able to kill.

It can be brutalist, with concrete slabs and structures. But it takes on a modern appearance sometimes. The Inner circle was elitist... it was tending to a venerable and obscure insider's flame of tradition. Virtually impossible to get in. It was a strong state, in a big country, and even if it was a bit hawkish, it was succeeding on many fronts. A superstate! People were proud to tell their nationality. It was steadily advancing in prosperity, control, security on the borders, internal stability, counterintelligence, scientific conquests and more. But i didn't get any of that. I was one of the disposables, still seemingly part of the better regarded category. I was meant to obey my caretakers unquestioningly. With us they did a little bit what they wanted. My life was regimented. I was trapped in this great, new, admirable republic, Artfremd to the Volksgemeinschaft.
I felt subordination towards that visionary concept, which i regarded, a bit worried, as my master. And i liked it!

I worked it out by telling myself i was serving something greater. It was a completely totalitarian society; monitoring of everyone, propaganda, censorship, conformism, not all that in the bombastic way some may imagine...
And, i was alright with it.
Perhaps i felt at home, or safely owned somehow. By a barely loyal master. It was very dominating, but that was our life. That was where i belonged.
As cold as it may have been, I never felt like i was unfairly threatened. It was utilitarian in some aspects. We were safely subdued, why throw us away? We seemed really safe as long as we behaved. And it was the world that i had come into, where i grew up, where i had been taught and raised and all that. My feelings cannot be put into words.

But the positive! The whole society was looking up. At least those that could afford to dream. That was the citizen class, which had little affection or regard for those below them. They saw the bottom ranks as a stepping stone towards national greatness. In the great and numerous academies, astronauts, medics, mechanics, all sorts of specialists were being made at a frenetic and stalwart pace. It was a national zeal. An Expansion. People were looking up. Eastwards but finally just up, expanding into the stars. A ruthless optimism brought the staunchest ones together; the feeling of being among inherently superior citizens in arms.

I think they might have been trying to elevate the citizen to the standards that they imagined it should meet. The society saw confident, athletic, sharp young persons, capable of fighting, capable of working hard, with iron resolve, almost predatory, to be a chief success...
And apparently they liked tomboys? There was some promotional about a tennis player, setting the example to follow. Something like that. Athletism, Drive, Will to power...

I was serving something greater.

It wasn't aggressive. Perhaps a bit like China nowadays, just more. It was a one party state, and its reach was far and tight.
I am always reminded of the Ideal of the citizen. It was a greatness. It was supremacy in human form. Physical prime, Intellectual genius, and a fanatical determination to victory, without ever sinking into impairing waters. There was a stoic urgency to access eternal grandeur.


And absolutely no freedom.