Monday, July 14, 2025

Life Is Not a Tautology

My nightly routine now includes grabbing a book and reading until I'm drowsy. This process seldom takes longer than 4-5 pages but tonight I just could not fall asleep while reading Aloft, (I actually never went to sleep last night. I made up for it by sleeping through most of the afternoon after I got home from work this morning.) Chang-Rae Lee's most recent novel. The book is written from the point of view of a recently retired 60 year old widower (I suppose I should mention that the protagonist is Caucasian who married an Asian woman) who's lived his entire life on Long Island and recently began flying his own single-engine craft as a hobby (hence the title). His two children are grown. His son lives nearby but his daughter has come into town from the Pacific NW with her fiance. The protagonist describes the fiance (who happens to be of full Asian heritage) as an author who

"writes about The Problem of Being Sort of Himself - namely the terribly conflicted and complicated state of being Asian and American and thoughtful and male, which would be just dandy in a slightly different culture or society but in this one isn't the hottest ticket."

I immediately put the book down and began this post as the phrase resonated with me. The first thought that comes to mind is that while that phrase might resonate with any Asian-American male and touch on some sense of angst, this phrase may not actually apply to him, as not everyone is thoughtful. The reality is that most of mankind lives on cruise control (we always do things this way) and they maintain their routines with little thought or analysis of why they do what they do. 

Given that my alarm just went off and I need to go to work, I will come back to this post in a number of days/weeks/months. 
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In this case, hours, and I revised what I wrote above the dashes to refine the focus.

It's my take in that Asian cultures and western (including American) cultures each have different world views and these views are mutually exclusive. I would continue by claiming that a thoughtful person would take the time to understand each world view and be able to recognize how these differences result in conflict. 

I presently identify three major world views, and interestingly, they seem to be grouped by race. The first two, which figure most prominently in the state of conflict for Asian-Americans, are described in Richard Nisbett's book The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently... And Why. The simplest way to summarize his work might be to borrow from Star Trek and suggest that the conflict stems from emphasizing the needs of the many over the needs of the few, or in this case, the individual. Adjectives that might describe the western view would include terms like linear and individual, while the eastern/asian view would be described by adjectives such as community and circular. The third world view places an emphasis on the supernatural and indeed, medicine men and the use of practices like voodoo are common in Africa.

Coming from a Judeo-Christian world view, I find it fascinating how it plays out. The world 'school' comes from the Greek word scole which means leisure; the implication is that with free time to do as one might please, the expectation was that the choice would be to improve one's mind through thought and education. And the biblical mandate of scholarship is readily embraced by the western church. on the other hand, with a world view that emphasizes community and cycles, etc. it should come as no surprise that eastern churches readily embrace the biblical mandate of koinonia, or fellowship. Finally, in my limited interaction of congregations that largely African-American, it seems to me that they readily embrace the idea that there is a supernatural solution to every problem.

And from within the Judeo-Christian world view, these differences can be ascribed to the account of the Tower of Babel. And looking at that account, my take is that the goal of God was primarily to prevent something called in Hebrew: shama which is often simply translated as to hear, but carries much deeper connotations which include attention, discernment and interestingly, obedience. I would suggest that it includes a frame of mind that is attentive, discerning, and most significantly, open as the result could include a change of mind/heart/behavior.

The answer I have (for now, as I need to be open to hearing more) is to no longer be in conflict when mutually exclusive values come into play and be comfortable in making a choice as to which value is going to prevail for that particular choice only - and there may be a time when another value will prevail with no implication of inconsistency or hypocrisy. There is no room for provincialism; something you've always done based on how you were indoctrinated is not necessarily going to be the appropriate choice the next time something needs to be done. And two people can be driven by mutually exclusive world views and both can be equally right - and equally wrong. It seems to me that pride/ego are also things that need to be monitored constantly when it motivates a need to be right.

Now I have to decide how I'm going to title this.

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