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Published: November 29th 2006
As many of you know I am writing a 80 page fieldwork paper here in India. Being such a momumental task, I decided to cut to thwe heart of the matter and write about what matters most to me: Happiness. basically, this paper is my manifesto about what I currently think the ideal manner to live one's life is. I plan on posting the different parts here so that anyone who reads them can critique (by comments people, by comments) and enjoy. This first part is my preface, or, why I find myself in India studying what Im studying.
Ever since I was a little kid trekking around Paris by my mother’s side I knew I wanted to study abroad. However, as I got older my values shifted from a desire to explore and meet people to an aspiration to change the world, with the year spent studying abroad to take center stage in this quest. It was freshman year of college when I first started thinking seriously about where I wanted to travel two years later. After much research and soul searching I came to the conclusion that I would go to Nicaragua and Bolivia, each for a semester. The reasoning wasn’t so much based upon their cultures or history, but more that they catered to my desire to be on the front lines of the battle against imperialism and see with my own eyes what, at that point, I had only been able to read about in books.
During the 2006-2007 school year Nicaragua would be holding presidential elections headlined by the indomitable Daniel Ortega. In my populist fervor I felt it a duty to go to Nicaragua and offer support, or at least watch the process. Bolivia was fighting the struggle even more actively since approximately 80,000 activists had surrounded then President Carlos Mesa’s presidential palace demanding his resignation. As a result he resigned and, winning the following election, was Evo Morales, a former cocoa grower.
These movements captured all of my attention to the extent that, though I now hate to admit it, I thought all improvements in my own community to be a waste of time and energy. “Why help at an after-school program when water is being privatized in Bolivia? What’s the point of protecting local wildlife when rainforests are being decimated on a cataclysmic scale?” I had it all planned out. I would save my energies for when I went abroad, find the cause I had searching for, be it guerrilla army or political movement, and devote the rest of my life to it. The year abroad was to be the point of departure that would guide the direction of all my future energies. Looking back, my energies were horribly misused and instead of looking to create within the framework of existing society I sought first and foremost the destruction of the present order.
During the middle of my sophomore year in college I experienced a radical “paradigm shift”, to use the catch phrase which defined my freshman year. The main event that caused this turnaround was a lecture given by a conservative Indian writer/thinker named Dinesh D’Souza financed by the Young Republicans National Committee. The week prior to his arrival a heated debate raged on campus as to whether he should even be allowed to give the lecture. One of my favorite teachers argued that he shouldn’t be allowed to since, to paraphrase what he often said, “They don’t think. Have you read them? I’ve read all of the conservative thinkers and either they are stupid or evil, probably both. There doesn’t need to be intellectual diversity because what I believe in is right and they are wrong.” I’m not going to say that I bought it completely, but I must admit that I agreed with him to a large extent. Thus, the day before Dinesh D’Souza was to come my teacher led a small info session for those who wanted to use D’Souza’s own words against him. I was one of the twelve students to show up and for 3 hours we read individual sentences out of his book which proved how right we were in thinking he was a bigot and how unbelievably stupid he was.
He began the lecture by saying to our hostile, and to be quite honest, rude crowd, “I will give a short lecture after which time you all will have the chance to ask questions to prove how much smarter than me you are.” I knew immediately that this wasn’t going to be the cake walk I was expecting. We were prepped for each of the topics he touched on, yet at each turn he addressed it in a completely different vein than I had been led by my teacher to expect. For example, when he said that single parenthood is the greatest bane to the lower classes, especially African Americans, he wasn’t decrying their moral turpitude as we had been led to believe, but instead looking at the negative socio-economic effects single incomes generate. He easily answered, quite logically in my estimation, all of the questions put forth by my peers, but what had perhaps the most profound effect on me was how thoroughly he refuted the claims of my professors. This may not sound like a life changing event, but it was. It showed me that the foundation upon which I built my whole social philosophy was not made of cement but instead of mud. I didn’t have the absolute truth, nor did the conservatives, but most importantly, neither did my ultra-liberal teachers that had influenced me so greatly.
Due to the ideological chaos that originated from this event I sought a new course of study free from paradigms, guilt about my privilege, or “duty”. It was not so much that I had turned my back on the poor and underprivileged, as I was seeking a surer way of making a positive impact on the world. I realized then that exclusively on the individual level could one be sure that what they were doing was right. Only by being there for friends when they are in need, helping in one’s immediate community and being a model human being worthy of emulation will one know for sure that their legacy will withstand the test of time.
The next semester I began taking religion and philosophy classes in place of politics and found to my liking that in them I could come up with my own answers, truly be the creator of my own beliefs. My politics professors had encouraged this enquiry, but only on a peripheral level. “I want you to question everything, especially the established way of doing things”, they could be heard to say. However, that inquisitiveness was only encouraged so long as the focus of the investigation wasn’t welfare, affirmative action or any other untouchable institution.
Throughout my study of philosophy I came to the conclusion that learning and knowledge were important only in so far as they grow the person who acquires them. I found that while I enjoyed learning for the sole sake of accruing knowledge, it didn’t inspire me. Instead, only topics that related to the individual’s pursuit of happiness held my attention and energies for extended periods of time. This was true across all disciplines.
My original attraction to politics was based upon my desire to find the system of government best suited to provide a climate in which people could flourish. Similarly, religion interested me because I found those who believed in something above and beyond themselves to be, in my estimation, happier than atheists who had only themselves to believe in. This enquiry I began even while an avowed atheist, my interest in matters relating to happiness was so great.
Philosophy obviously relates to human happiness, yet at times swings towards trivial topics with little impact on the world we live in. At a time when I had become quite frustrated with the irrelevance of a majority of philosophy I came across a quote from Epicurius handwritten on a ripped piece of paper. It was taped to a filing cabinet almost hidden from view, a remnant of a bygone decade. It said, “Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers no therapy for human suffering. For just as there is no use in medical expertise if it does not give therapy for bodily diseases, so too there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul.” This quote has had continued meaning for me and quite succinctly sums up what I feel about learning. Happiness is the ultimate ideal to which all efforts and education should be centered around.
All this explains why I chose “Happiness” as the topic for my fieldwork. However, it doesn’t explain how I now find myself sitting in front of a computer in Madurai watching saree-clad women and cows meander past me down the road. That can be summed up in two words. One is impetuousness. The other is curiosity.
I was talking to my advisor Barbara Johnson in her office one day about how I no longer knew where I wanted to study abroad when I looked up and saw a poster of Gandhi. A strong, unexplainable feeling came over me and I decided then and there that I would study abroad in India. In the weeks prior to that meeting I had been reading a lot about Gandhi, although while India piqued my interest, it was never more than a casual fascination. Why then did I decide to commit a full year of my time, let alone thousands of dollars to go to a place I had no more than a passing interest in? After six months of answering that question an untold number of times I now have a reply that adequately addresses that query. That answer is “It was the hardest thing I could possibly do.”
I felt that I had a pretty good general understanding of a majority of the world’s cultures since I had traveled extensively throughout Europe and had grown up in a very diverse community. However, when it came to India, I would readily admit that I didn’t understand it or its infamous caste system nor did I know its history adequately. I suspected that it would be easier to penetrate any other place in the world by merely traveling, but if I were to understand India, a place that seemed nearly antithetical to America, I would have to live there for an extended period of time.
Because I grew up in the West, and would probably spend a majority of my future there, I felt that to fully understand Western culture I needed to gain perspective on it. Just as one’s neighborhood looks different when viewed from a towering cliff or lofty high-rise, I wished to perceive the culture that I thought I knew so well from a new vantage point. I believed a year in the enigmatic, mystical land of India to be the desired belvedere whose vista would afford me the new perspective I required to grow as an individual and citizen of the world. I was right.
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sally bell
non-member comment
wow
Dear Nate, I love your first draft. It gave me a much better idea of what you are striving to go after. Thank you so much for sharing this wih me and others.