This will be the last blog that I write while I'm on this trip. I've learned quite a bit in this country and here is a little summary of what I've learned:
I'll begin by telling you a little about myself, in case you don't know me very well. I'm quite laid back and don't ever conduct myself or my time in an orderly fashion. I enjoy sitting around and doing nothing. I don't like confrontations. I'm really embarrassed to say that I'm lazy. Besides a few isolated instances, I've never given my best effort in school. I have often figured, "Hey, as long as I get a decent job or whatever, then it doesn't matter. As long as I'm getting passing grades, then all is well. It's so boring to work hard in school. I don't need tons of money to enjoy my life. I just want to have fun and do something I love." I seek to enjoy not just leisure, but leisure in the moment. I now see that this is idiocy. A lot of India's culture is based on enjoying leisure in the moment over hard work (please keep in mind that it is impossible to generalize a nation of 1 billion people and there are notable exceptions to the following statements). Here in India, people show up late to everything. They work slowly. They shop slowly. They drink chai slowly. They wait before doing anything. Why do today what we can do tomorrow? There is no schedule for anything. Nothing is cut and dried and totally consistent. There are 20 contradictions for everything here. Just walk around and ask people why they don't eat beef or put cows in pins and you will get a myriad of different answers. And no one will ever disagree with each other. I'm right, you're right, we're all right (even if our illogical views contradict each other). Jesus is God, Shiva is God, the cow is God, I'm God, you're God, everything is God, nothing is God. You get the idea. This lax thought prevails in much of what I've seen in India. If you know anything about me, you'd think I was in paradise (excepting the paganism of course). But India is no paradise. Two million children under the age of 5 die every year from preventable causes in India. The water is contaminated. There is no municipal trash collection, so garbage piles up in streets and vacant lots. The cities do not have adequate draining and sewage systems. The police are unreliable at best and corrupt criminals at worst. The justice system and government is overcome with corruption. Cows eat thirty percent of the country's grain while children starve in slums.
America is the world's suburb and it has become such for many reasons. One of the foremost of these reasons is that Americans strive for excellence. When a job takes too long, we complain about it. If a job is poorly done, then we berate the person that did it. People get fired and called useless if they are lazy. I have often complained about this, but this no tolerance, no nonsense attitude about work is what makes America different from the rest of the world. But excellence is more than that. Excellence is thinking creatively -- with innovation, progress, and improvement in mind. Excellence is never being satisfied with anything less than reaching your highest potential despite how hard it might be to reach it. This American excellence is why you have internet right now and why mine keeps turning off. It's why my power keeps surging and yours stays on all day. It's why you can drink from any faucet in America and why I have a water purifier attached to mine. I could literally go on about this for paragraphs on end. America has 911, reliable police and firemen, free public education, tons of universities, and a million other institutions that not only keep the country from going to hell, but elevate the country into prosperity so that we have the highest standards of living in the world. Not to mention other little things like how we think criminals should go to jail, or how we think the law should be obeyed, or how we protest injustice and fight against it, hold food drives, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We could seriously write a three volume series about it.
So why is America like this? It's not because we are selfish and dying to be rich. We'd all try to be drug dealers, corrupt businessmen, or criminals of some sort if that were the case. Successful open heart surgery was not attained to satisfy a selfish urge. America has gotten to be the way it is because of Christianity. It begets love, and love works wonders. It is why my dad worked his butt off so that he could one day become a chiropractor so that he could provide for his children. He did it because he loves his wife and children, not so that he could drive a sports car (and he doesn't). He wanted to ensure that they would never have to worry about not having food or a college education. Not everyone who behaves this way is a Christian, but the values have been passed down from our hardworking Christian forefathers and taken root in the culture. So yes, we strive for excellence and it's great.
India and most of the world don't strive for excellence. I have not been striving for excellence. I often find myself complaining about my generation and then realize that I often epitomize my generation's flaws. If we were to take the socio-cultural philosophy and everyday lifestyle of Neal Herring to an extreme and then spread it throughout a nation, that nation would look similar to India. I don't mean that India is lazy. Some of the hardest working people I've ever met are in fact Indians. Many of them take their education and jobs extra seriously. They have inspired me. I have met many children from the slum who have been given the opportunity by Karunya Ministries to have an education and they work so hard and want to achieve so much. This is not the case for most of India's impoverished people. Many want an education, but are too poor to afford one. They have absolutely no hope because they are poor, low caste Indians. They want what you and I have, but will not ever get it. Ever. Most of them will die premature deaths without ever having made more than a dollar a day their entire life.
A lot of people that come to this realization start attacking their countrymen. The first time they hear an American complain about something, they say, "Shut up, you could have it a lot worse." I refuse to do this. Yes, we could all have it a lot worse, but please do complain. When something is not right, complain about it and refuse to accept it. Don't stop there though. Complain about the things that need to be complained about and then follow it up with action. Don't ever be complacent. Do what it takes to get the best results.
I have been so irresponsible with what I've been given. This will now change. It's exciting actually. I've been getting ambitious and wondering what I could do with my life and how I could perhaps change the world and do a million other things.
I'm not saying we should all become workaholics, that America is some perfect Promised Land, or that the object of life is to be good at what you do. Just keep in mind that a (former) slacker wrote this. Christ is where we find life, and I'm finding out how un-Christlike it was for me to think the way I have. Look here again at my previous statement: "I don't need tons of money to enjoy my life. I just want to have fun and do something I love." So the motivation for my behavior was selfish and now I'm finding tons of reasons to not think that way. Sorry, I just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about any of this.
Most of what I've been doing on a day-to-day basis is going to Karunya Ministries to help tutor kids in English. After lunch today I walked around the neighborhood a little to try to talk to people and whatnot, but most of the ones that responded couldn't speak much English. Oh well it was fun trying. After that, I started walking towards Karunya Ministries and got a glass of musambi juice on the way. There is a barber shop on the way, so I got my hair cut and my beard trimmed as well. It was only 60 Rs. which is about a dollar and a half. I got to talk to my barber and he was extremely nice. He talked about how he really wanted to come to the US. I asked why and he said it was just harder to make money in India. His English was surprisingly good and he said that he learned it outside of school, just by ear since his school didn't offer English classes. When I arrived at Karunya, I got the usual greeting from the kids -- "good evening, Uncle!" I really haven't figured out why they do that, but it seems to be an aspect of the Indian English dialect. Everyone says it to any man that they respect (women get to to be called Auntie). I guess it's similar to how we use words like bro or how the British and Australians say mate. The past few days I've been teaching the same group of girls. Their names and ages are Divya (10), Aishwarya (13), Bindhu (11), Shwaytah (10), and Selvi (11). The girls are a lot more fun to teach because they don't always try to fight and whatnot. All of them speak Tamil and Kannada as well as a little English but two speak very good English. As I was teaching, one of the girls turned a page on Bindhu's book and accidentally ripped the page about 3 inches. All of them squealed in horror. Everything got really tense. I said, "Hey it's just a tear. What's the big deal? It still works!" They all looked down sadly, especially Bindhu. Divya said quietly, "Uncle, she's crying." Bindhu wasn't quite crying, but she was very sad. I reassured her that everything was okay and that we could tape the book, but they said no to the tape. They all seemed to get a hold on themselves again and then I realized how much they value things like schoolbooks. I later told them that in America, schoolbooks are free. All of their jaws dropped in surprise, but Divya looked disgusted and confused. She picked up her English book and said, "Uncle, this book cost over a thousand rupees! Why are they free in America?" It's hard to put into words how that made me feel. I explained how we produce enough to use taxes to pay for public education, but only Divya (who has the best English) really understood. It was a similar story at dinner tonight. Our house helper Suma (who makes us a meal every Monday night) and I had a long conversation and she also expressed her desire to come to the US. She's been trying to for twelve years.
Well it's late and I'm tired, so that's all I have for now. I'll be back in the USA sometime next Monday.
