im trying to get my mind around a few concepts...its like, i float these ideas around and they seem connected, but they dont quite..its like if they connected the right way, i would have something really insightful to say. one of the things im trying to understand is the relation between a society's financial power/opportunity and what becomes important for that society - like what values are instilled in the social fabric; in turn how these values are reflected by the actions and beliefs of individuals containted in these societies.
...i have this idea that being poor makes someone a better human being so long as that poverty is contained in an entire society of poverty, and not contained as a individual surrounded by those who have more materially. that if its an entire society, the values of that society change to reflect the greater need. lots of things make a person less reliant on other human beings, whether that means entertainment, clothing, food, etc. one can get holed up into your own little planet, but if you dont have those things you have to interact. you cant just run around being an asshole. everyone in senegal seemed happier than everyone here. except my host sister..but she had a decent amount materially and no social context except her shitty job and her psycho dad and obidient mother.
there there was this saying, nit ni moy garab bu nit ni. people are people's medicine. there, woven into the social fabric, was this notion of being satisfied with what you have. utter acceptance that people live and they die and you must profit from life as much as you can. you do not waste your time being dissatisfied, you say alhamdoulilah (thanks be to allah)and if you have your health than you have everything.
if you're rich you dont need to believe in god, or anything spiritual at all, or gratefulness, or whatever you want to call that emotive state which means you realize you didnt earn most of what you have and it could have been any other way very easily. you didnt earn your good health. you didnt earn being able to see. maybe you feel like you earned that thing you bought, but you didnt earn being born into a decent economy in which you could find work to buy that thing. people here are really fucked up. why does this happen? our society, one giant spoiled alcoholic manic-depressive child. how many victims of the american way do you know?
im rich. no im not, my mom is. but i have potential to get rich, and i have access...
people in senegal dont have a guilt complex to deal with, most americans do in one way or another. whether this is denial (why dont they just get a job?) or activism or useless sympathy (oh those poor dears, i just cant imagine..dear put the othertoothpaste in the cart, i dont like that kind..)
in the heart of the beast. in the heart of the beast. in the breast of the empire. here.
....but i need to examine this further...
god i feel so tired and crabby and closed.
