Knowing when to say when...

I finally finished Dreams from my Father tonight, all 442 pages. To call it an amazing story is to call the universe kinda big. It is the story of a boy searching for his roots, a story of our beginnings, and an examination of where we are as a culture now and how we got here. There were several life-altering moments throughout the story, but I think the one that has opened my eyes the most is his family's breakdown of the changes that occurred in Africa (and I'm sure elsewhere as well) post-colonialism.

On a visit to the town of Alego, where his father is buried in an unmarked grave, Obama and his sister come across a few locals who tell them of the harshness of life there. They follow their words with a request for money. Once they have gone, Obama's sister asks their uncle what has happened in Alego. People never used to beg there, she says. Their uncle replies, "I believe they have learned this thing from those in the city. People come back from Nairobi or Kisumu and tell them, 'You are poor.' So now we have this idea of poverty. We didn't have this idea before. You look at my mother. She will never ask for anything. She has always something that she is doing. None of it brings her much money, but it is something, you see. It gives her pride."

This idea of life before materialism blows my mind. I can't even imagine such a place. Obama's grandmother talks later of the traditions of the Luo, his family tribe, and how slowly but surely they disappeared in favor of those of the English. She starts off with the tribe's instant liking of tea, as introduced by the English, and how this brought a need for teapots and sugar, something they had never needed before. And, from there, the sense of need continued to grow. It got me thinking about how these imagined needs have now been blown completely out of proportion. How we now need cell phones, cable tv, manicures, internet, and Starbucks. It reminds me of a song by Ben Folds called All U Can Eat. It takes the form of his usual crass humor that my mother has never been able to understand, punctuated with a tear-inducing piano solo in the middle, and addresses the American ideal of overconsumption- of food, stuff, and hypocrisy.

Son, look at the people lining up for plastic.
Wouldn't you like to see them in the National Geographic?
Squatting bare-assed in the dirt eating rice from a bowl,
With a towel on their head and maybe a bone in their nose.
See that asshole with a peace sign on his license plate?
Giving me the finger and running me out of his lane.
God made us number one cause he loves us the best,
well He should go bless someone else for a while, and give us a rest.

I think the most important thing we can do as people is to be sure we keep looking deeper into ourselves, asking why a little more. Our culture isn't in itself harmful, but anything done without self-insight is dangerous.


Simplicity encourages us to focus within, complexity without.