Perishable News

As write this, May 21st, 2011 is in it's final hour, and aside from an Icelandic volcano acting up, it seems that the earth and its inhabitants have been spared Judgement Day 2011. The billboard in this picture was posted on tenth avenue and 37th street (thereabouts) in New York City. I discovered it on a walk to that neighborhood last week, however I had been hearing about the impending end of days for about 2 years now. My mother listens to that station (94.7), to a very level-sounding radio evangelist by the name of Harold Camping. Mr.Camping is known for his doomsday predictions - his most recent (and obviously failed) forecast was for an earth-ending cataclysm in 1994.

My mother had not placed much stock in this latest prediction, continuing to listen to the radio station mostly for the traditional hymns and bible readings. But lots of people did. I understand that the above billboard was paid for by a man who liquidated his life savings to warn people about the coming rapture. He was interviewed in Times Square tonight where he kept glancing at his watch saying he didn't understand why nothing happened. Although we are all responsible for our decisions, a surprising number of people are are easily led. Mr.Camping's prediction was couched  in such uncompromising language that he attracted a certain type of zealous believer while at the same time repelling more moderate people. If he'd said this event was 'likely' rather than 'certain', I have a feeling that he might have influenced many more people.

This event resonated with me because I am in the process of examining many of my own beliefs, and identifying the influences on my way of thinking - in short, I am trying to drill down to 'me'. In this quest, it is helpful to remember that belief and truth are not the same thing. There is also a need to tease apart belief and opinion. You could say that we present our opinions to the world, but guard our beliefs even from ourselves. I am learning that I don't truly believe some of the things that I profess (all people are basically good), and that I deeply believe some things that I had not up to now acknowledged  (some people are just plain bad). I don't know if those things are true, and with further experience its possible that my beliefs may again be revised. Or, maybe they are just opinions.

Seung Sahn, one of my favorite authors, has coined a phrase "Only Don't Know"  - meaning that we should always maintain a mind open to all possibilities. Another of my favorite authors, Shunryu Suzuki suggests that we keep a "Beginner's Mind", which means essentially the same thing. Yet a third author, Pema Chodron advises us to become "Comfortable with Uncertainty", which is a similar idea. This way of living requires that we free ourselves of the kind of opinion that often masquerades as belief, and root ourselves instead in the simple beliefs that tend to dovetail with the truth.

Scientists have already predicted the end of earth days - specifically the death of our sun and the resultant darkening ( and freezing) of the earth, leading to the end of life as we know it. That's another five billion years away. Or we could be hit by a meteor. It is all so unknowable that I wonder if it's even useful to harbor a belief in this regard.

I also have to wonder if Harold Camping himself truly believed his own prediction, or was able to grasp its full import. When asked how he would spend this day ( May 21, 2011 - the day he expected all the faithful to be raptured to heaven, including presumably, himself) he replied to the effect that he would spend the day reading the Bible and watching the TV coverage of rapture news from around the world. Which begs the question - was he expecting to be "Left Behind" ?

Manifest Destiny

I have been living in America for twenty-two years, and for the most part I feel quite at home here. I appreciate the political system, and though it can be expensive, there is a health-care system. When you call the police, the police show up, when you need an ambulance, you can count on one, except perhaps in a snowstorm. When you have business to conduct, there are clearly laid out rules which apply more or less for everyone, and when things go wrong there are channels for recourse. I mention these first because they are the things that have kept me from considering a move back to Trinidad with any degree of seriousness.

I have been learning about American History with my son as we prepare for his weekly 7th Grade Social Studies tests. Even if it is not the absolute truth, Americans take great pride in the idea of their 'exceptionalism', which has been a buzzword in the editorials lately, and I think for the most part the world buys into it. As a Naturalized American, I can't testify to exceptionalism, but what I can say is that I was unexpectedly moved to tears during my swearing in as a citizen. There is something very special about this country: it is the fact that its citizens take its specialness so seriously.

I realize that this belief in specialness is not consistently held by all Americans. Those who have fallen on hard times tend to focus more on what the government is doing wrong, rather than on the country's virtues, but I suppose that applies everywhere, as Maslow knew. Right now we are clamoring about the price of gas and consumer goods in general - but this isn't happening in a vacuum, and I don't think yelling about it will cause things to change any faster than the wheel of supply and demand dictates.

Let's have a little perspective: my brother recently returned from a trip to Uganda and a close brush with the border of Rwanda.

He says:
"The southern end of Uganda is quite scenic and appears very peaceful, but poverty is all around. Despite that, people appear to be content and even happy in what might appear to the western eye to be dire straits. They live communally and all have a little something to eat or they all starve together, however it is hard for those who aspire to something else - those who want to move up"

"Sometimes I wonder if my own value system is screwed up - these people wake up to birds singing, eat mataka ( green bananas pounded into a paste), breadfruit and fresh fruit every day, socialize
and dance into the evening as there is no electricity in many places."

Wedding in Uganda  - May 2011

Southern Uganda - May 2011

In the late seventies, I had a pen-pal from Uganda. Her name was Lizzie Nakakawa. During the time that we were corresponding, Idi Amin was the President of that country, and there were frequent bouts of unrest, though strangely enough - this was never mentioned in her letters. After a few exchanges, the letters just stopped coming, and I assumed the worst - that she'd been killed or maimed in a raid on her village. Of course, she could just as easily have lost interest in writing to me, or become busy with her own life.
I had many pen pals, but Lizzie was the most enigmatic. She sent me just one black and white photo of herself with her closely cropped afro, wearing a flowered skirt, a light colored blouse, low white pumps.. and a  megawatt smile. Those white shoes were the most intriguing thing. I often wondered if she wore them only for that picture, or whether they had some practical application elsewhere in her life. Of course, I never found out.   

There is no reason to believe that Ugandans love their country less than any of us love ours. It's not a matter of how good or bad the government is - it is a matter of identifying with the place where you were born and came to know yourself. For me, even though I have reservations about Trinidad socially and politically - the deep tugging that I feel once I get there cannot be mistaken for anything other than a sense of belonging that is inextricable from my very sense of self.

For almost a year, I have been trying to read the autobiography of  V.S.Naipaul ( The World is What It Is - Patrick French). V.S.Naipaul is one of my favorite authors, but the disdain he has shown for his country of birth (and countrymen) is hard to swallow. It is so extreme as to be a form of self-hate. It puzzled and saddened me to the point that I have not been able to finish reading the book.
I often hold Derek Walcott in my mind as a counterbalance to V.S. and his view. Here is a man who was born in St. Lucia, made Trinidad his home and embraced the entire Caribbean and indeed the whole world, suffusing his work with love songs to many lands - both overtly and subtly.

I love New York and I love America but I never touch the wellspring of myself as effortlessly as I do when I am 'home' in Trinidad. Every little curve of the hills I grew up gazing at seems like some feature of my own body, or that of some well-loved one. I am due to travel back in July and I know what I want to take back with me - it is the idea of Trinidadian exceptionalism. May it spread like a wildfire in the dry season.


*Top Photo: unattributed, taken in February or March 2011 off the Foreshore Highway, Trinidad.
It is a cloud formation in the shape of the island of Trinidad.
*Uganda photos - courtesy my brother, May 2011

Excuse me...

What causes some people to invest self-effacingly in the social ease of others, while other people are able to voice their feelings and insist on their preferences without undue concern for it?

Lately, I have been having the exhilirating experience of seeing my decisions piss people off. This, from a person whose passivity is so great that even those closest to me have no hint of its true depth.

When I was seven, my mother and I visited a friend of hers. My mother's friend asked if I wanted some milk. Easy enough, I said yes. She pulled down a glass from the cupboard, poured some milk into it and handed it to me. I took it, said thanks and raised it to my lips.
To my horror, there inside the glass - along with the milk, was a cobweb.

Now, a cobweb is different from a spider's web. A spider's web is silky and almost invisible.
A cobweb is a long abandoned spider's web which has been embalmed with dust and the opacity of disuse.  I saw it, paused, then carefully started drinking, having decided that I couldn't bring it to either adult's attention without causing embarassment for everyone. I drank without shaking the glass, and the cobweb co-operated - collapsing into a greyish thread-like mass which floated on the meniscus of the milk, with one tentacle still stuck against the glass. It was with a genuine sense of accomplishment that I finshed the glass of milk without the cobweb making contact with my lips.

I can follow the breadcrumbs from there through a forest of deferences all the way to the paralysing root canal episode which finally brought anger and outrage, and clarity about my passivity. That galvanizing event caused me to suddenly launch into a string of defiant 'no's' in the face of almost any request or suggestion, as if to aquiesce was some sort of suicide. It was bound to happen, I suppose - a kind of backlash. Having purged that venom somewhat, I have entered a considerably more pleasant pasture of options: "I'd rather not"; "I'm sorry, I can't"; "That doesn't work for me"; "I prefer X, thanks", and if need be I might just be able to say, "Excuse me, but there's something in my glass..."