Normally, I do not answer questions of the 'if you d no like our president, go to France' variety - because the poor excuses for human beings who typically ask them do not expect any answers, nor are they able to understand any that go beyond the most primitive emotions. However, members of this list are different, I suppose, and they do expect answers, so let me try to give you some.
The reason I left Poland was that it was (and still is) a provincial backwater, a Podunk with worldly ambitions, a pissant second-world country full of nationalist bigotry and self-style martyrdom. Personal reasons aside (no, I am not going to do any personal vivisections in the reality-show style) , I was quite tired of bombastic political speeches pronouncing superiority of the new moral order to people who were surrounded - let's face it - by shit and mud. Literally. And ungliness, and arrogance. And ignorant group think. Ana a big disappointment of the Solidarnosc movement which turned out to be reactionary power grab cum buffoonery.
I need a change, and one days I sobered up, gave away all my possessions (mostly books) bough a train ticket to Vienna and voila, I was "free." Literally. Most people do more weekend planning than me ex and I did for our "trip to freedom." We ended up in Vienna without any clue what to do next. A policemen informed us that we should go to the refugee office and ask for more info.
S we did. We learned that we cannot stay in Austria, but our best bets were; Australia (too far), South Africa (no, thank you), Canada (too damn cold) or the US. I knew a bit about the US - in the 1970s it was a very cool country, a lot of artists, cool and progressive people, Woody Allen, the hippies, New York, California. So why not?
So I got here, and what did I get? A slow descent to Reaganism, war mongering, bigotry, Podunk provincial self-righteousness, bombastic political speeches pronouncing superiority of the "American way" to people living in urban slums or suburban Macmansions made of press board and vinyl siding, ugly cinderblock malls (no mud, though). And got worse and worse, after Reagan, Bush the leder, then athe Clinton interlude, and then Dubya. More war mongering, more self-righteousness, more Podunk, more Bushit.
In a way, I feel as if I never left Poland. The only difference is that Poland is, as I said, a small, poor, pisaant second world country struggling to be taken seriously by its neighbors - so one does not really expect it to be anything else than a pretentious provincial Podunk. The US, otoh, is a world superpower that could do infinitely better if it chose to. The problem is it does not. It chooses not to live up to its full potential. Therefore, it deserves to be judged by the same standards that the US politicos and podunk bourgeoisie applies to those whom they see as choosing not take advantage of their "opportunities" - the 'welfare queens," the homeless, the druggies. By those standards, the US is shit, because it could do much better but it does not.
Now, why I do not leave that shit? By now, I probably know why I am not too eager to go back to Poland, as many émigrés I know did. And elsewhere? I would love to go to Western Europe (which did not want me 25 years ago) - Amsterdam, Paris, London. The only problem is that I am 25 years older. I do not want to start from the scratch again, learn a totally new language to the point that I can say more than 'ein bier,' look for another job, find a new place to live. Besides my wife is a US-ser, and I a not sure she would be thrilled by the prospects of dumping everything here and moving to place she vaguely knows. In a word, it is the transaction cost, which is much higher now than it was 25 years ago.
So I know that despite may talk about my "passport to EU" (which btw I can get for ca. $150) - I will not go anywhere. I am trapped here. If I am lucky, I may be able to move to NYC, which is as good as Amsterdam, Paris, or London - but given my current earning potential, I would need to win a lottery ticket to be able to do that and not become homeless.
So here is my situation, I bargained for a fish but I got a snake instead and I am stuck with it. I am surrounded by a life style that suffocates me and makes me feel depressed, and empty, alienating, superficial, pretentious and silly and unsustainable life style - with little hope that it will get any better during my life time. There might be a few bright spots here and there (this list is one of them) - but otherwise - SUVs, macmansions, and self-righteousness. And no place to hide.
I realize that my problems are mainly aesthetic, and there are many people in the world who would be extremely happy to have only those problems. But once you take a 'designer approach' to you life, as I did 25 years ago, and start re-designing your surroundings and yourself - you are not satisfied with mediocrity anymore. You want better. And that is the problem.
Wojtek