Es gibt einen Zusammenhang zwischen Bequemlichkeit und Vergesslichkeit

“Es gibt einen Zusammenhang zwischen Bequemlichkeit und Vergesslichkeit” names the connection the narrator’s father draws between comfort and forgetting. The idea emerges from a concrete discovery about his shoes: what he had taken for a proper fit was actually a familiar, unnecessary pressure, and an uncomfortable shoe had kept itself present in his awareness.

The Shoes and the Discovery

As part of his effort to lose weight, the father bought running clothes and shoes with the narrator. He had long claimed to wear size forty-three, but the shop assistant found that even size forty-four was too small. The father bought size forty-five only after the assistant assured him that running shoes ran especially small, and wore them immediately to break them in, as his books advised.

Later, over a meal at the family’s favorite grill, the father realized that these were probably the first shoes he had ever bought that actually fit. Until then, he had assumed that a shoe should press slightly against the foot. The episode turns an ordinary purchase into a moment of recognition: his expectation of what a fitting shoe should feel like had obscured the possibility of genuine comfort.

The Narrator’s Explanation

The father asked the narrator why he might have kept wearing shoes that were too small. The narrator answered that a shoe that fits well would soon be forgotten, whereas a shoe he liked would remain noticeable because it pressed against him. The father liked the explanation and repeated it to the narrator on later occasions, making the observation a shared family formulation rather than a passing remark.

Meaning and Use

The expression condenses the exchange into a compact paradox: comfort can lead to forgetfulness, while discomfort preserves awareness. Its force comes from the small physical fact behind it—the pressure of an ill-fitting shoe—and from the contrast between the father’s mistaken assumption and the narrator’s explanation. The saying is grounded in this particular conversation; the passage presents it as an insight the father adopts, not as a general theory elaborated beyond the experience of the shoes.