The Problem With Pilgrimage

White Man's bleeding heart runs like sewerage down a poorly maintained road. An incessant need to show the poor maldeveloped just how it's done. Riding in on a calvary of Toyota Landcruisers and housed in five star hotels, we all can sleep easier tonight. The miracle workers have arrived. Their virtuous intentions are applaudable, but can you really save the third world from its biggest enemy - themselves?

It's a tough ask right from the beginning. The child born into a household with no electricity, poor nutrition, and uneducated parents now has to create a life for himself? Sleeping on cardboard, no room to study, no parents to help with homework. The NGO (non government organisation) lacks the community acceptance needed to storm into corrugated iron huts and lecture parents on how to raise their children. Despite being necessary, the response is likely to be a torrent of abuse followed by a chaser of 7.62mm bullets.

Because grass roots societal reform is so inherently difficult, NGO's resort to larger scale projects like tuberculosis eradication and construction of utility infrastructure. However these struggle to trickle down to the user. Still affected by untreated scheme water and hygiene related illness, people wonder what is the point if their child is uneducated and underweight.

This desperation drives many societies to another miraculous saviour - religion. Generations of little buddhas enter monastic life to find inner peace and suppress natural desires such as inquisition, knowledge, and experimentation. The hardship of street life is now replaced with free meals, robes, and accommodation provided by white pilgrims escaping their horrible first world lives to find "real" happiness. 

Does this all encompassing faith help society to progress? When your day is occupied with praying, chanting, and circumnavigating objects in a clockwise direction it's hard to make a positive contribution to basic infrastructure. Society falls apart around you while you sit in the lotus position focusing on abdominal breathing. Are you really finding happiness or just ignoring things that make you unhappy?

It's an exercise in futility. Your teenage daughter is moody and dysthymic because she enjoys it. She pretends she doesn't but that's part of her identity and no amount of time at the bookshop's parenting section is going to change it. Perhaps the destitute are merely fulfilling their own destiny, unaffected by bleeding hearts and four wheel drives.

Short of altering the DNA of every newborn, your efforts are going to be minimal and will always make you feel better than the people you are trying to help. Families that only know conflict will pass this unfortunate trait onto their children. Pride is a rare commodity in a society with corruption for leadership and hopelessness as its main aspiration. Without pride, there's no incentive to change things for future generations. It's far easier to don a robe and have dahl and rice slopped in front of you for the rest of your life.

Resistance to change is causative, not just symptomatic. Financial advisors repeatedly say past performance is no indicator of future gain however the third world clings onto conservative views out of fear that something new could upset their predictably pathetic lives. The brave amongst them who dare for progress are lucky to be alienated if they survive the beatings and assassination attempts.

There is hope though, small pockets of common citizens with overseas perspective have become uncomfortable waiting for their contemptuous government to pick up the pieces. Shiromani Dhungana (The Kathmandu Post 14/2/10) writes "We are becoming indifferent to the problems of the city. This culture of negligence and growing indifference towards the city's problems is not in favour of the greater good. Citizens themselves should look for proactive measures to improve the condition. We need the will power in us, we need to have a feeling that the city belongs to us."

It is up to these adults of today to create a life that the children of tomorrow will aspire to live. An existence where corruption and crime are replaced with opportunity and pride, a society that applauds contributors and shames detractors. The problem with this solution is it starts now. It requires immediate action by the very people that were let down by their forebears. Using history as a convenient excuse, generations propagate stagnation and unknowingly deny their society of a better future. 

This kind of change can only come from within. Lubricated by the blood of bleeding hearts but originating from the hearts of its people. People who have the courage to rally fellow countrymen to discover inner pride and actively work towards change. Not monastic outcasts using religion as an excuse to leach off society and contribute nothing in return. Positive action that completely overturns the cultural matrix of society to reset past belief and give people tangible hope that there is a better way.

Anything less is just humoring a process that could transform the lives of people long into the future. 

Take Me Home

Q: Why do birds fly home for the winter? 

A: Because it's too far to walk.

What is this magical place birds fly to? What does it mean to say "I've had enough, I'm going home." Where do nomadic globetrotters (and drug traffickers) call home when their bags are perpetually unpacked?

It must be more than a geographical location. Perhaps there are elements of our environment that trigger a sense of home within us.

Firstly, a feeing of safety. Abundant in the beachside suburbs of Pleasantville, more elusive when a potentially violent force looms. Like inmates in an Ecuadorian prison, it's hard to feel home when there is a less than fifty percent chance of seeing the sun again. In the face of danger, only an appropriate barrier allows safety to be found. Afghanistan may be a dangerous country but workers are happy to call the US Embassy home knowing there are several machine guns and surface to air missiles to keep the riff raff away.

Difficult to earn, safety can be stolen as easily as tax from your pay slip. Using a crowbar, the uninvited intruder emulates the tax office destroying any allusion of safety and prematurely terminating the beloved connection between house and home. No surprise that those who have been violated lose not only possessions but a far more valuable sense of home. Many see no option but to leave.

Physical safety and its emotional counterpart are intertwined with a feeling of home.

Next element of home is regeneration. Like a mobile phone calling out for its charger, we need a place to regenerate for the next day. A lion makes do with a warm rock, but we humans have complicated and demanding needs. Physical ones like food and sleep seem simple enough, but mental stimulation and social interaction prove more elusive.

A home with family is better equipped to provide this than a mezzanine loft with one inhabitant fuelled by pizza and beer. The joy of returning to a house full of people, noise, and clutter - akin to a living breathing creature able to share some of its life with those around.

Family is also integral to the last component of home, familiarity. Something unique and individual that sets one apart from the six billion bipedals that share Earth. Seeing the group of people who nurtured you or the people that you nurtured, each helps to impart a familiar feeling of home. 

But there are other ways to find famliarity, even something as simple as the way clutter is scattered in a space. Arranged by subconsious desire, a quiet sense of achievement identifies that physical space as your own. Animals have been doing this for ages, proudly marking their home with bodily secretions to repel others and identify a space as theirs. Something to try if you are struggling to find personal space. 

A uniquely individual space impervious to others develops immaterial ownership which is crucial to feeling at home.

Interestingly, all three factors are needed to yield a comprehensive sense of home. Checking into a five star hotel instantly offers safety and rejuvenation. But without an individual sense of famliarity it soon becomes a sterile and artificial experience. Similarly, living in a remote area without electricity becomes unhomely when simple rejuvenating activities like a hot shower or meal become tortuous ordeals.

But when all are present, the synergism quickly unlocks what we know as home. Famliarity removes uncertainty providing comfort which allows rejuvenation. It becomes effortless, a subterranean warmth rises within us and we are there.

Even if fleeting and transient, its power at that instant should not be underestimated. A sense of home acts like a springboard propelling us into the trials and tribulations of life with a glimmer of optimism. No matter how frequently the geographical characteristics of safety, regeneration, and familiarity change, their combined effect remains the same.

This allows us to view the world as a single space. High speed internet, webcams, and air travel allow us to function whether we are based in one city or many. With human ingenuity, we can find a sense of home without ever needing to be there.

Turning Japanese

Japan, a country of mystery. Medieval castles, Zen Buddhist temples, the elusive Iron Chef Italian. That crosswalk where people interweave like cogwheel teeth epitomising Japanese psyche. Hard to imagine another place where two million people could pass obliquely without collision.

Perhaps there is an equally mysterious force swirling amongst the black and white tarmac - social responsibility. Plucked from the dictionary of bleeding hearts, it explains the nature of people in an inherently chaotic and crowded country. As Little Boy violated Hiroshima in 1945, an incredible sense of collective responsibility spread over Japan more emphatically than the radiation that initiated it.

A need to look after your fellow man not for him or you, but for everyone. Hiroshima's light rail network was up and running the next day. Contrast this with the familiar council worker solar array statically reflecting light onto the sole worker doing anything.

Venture beyond Ginza into Japan's suburban neighbourhoods and even the outsider can experience this. A unique sense of calm and patience instilled amongst its people as if sedatives had been aerolised into the atmosphere. A reserved but insatiable urge to do the right thing coupled with an individual's sense of pride.

Pride, revered in progressive society with the same passion as it is condemned in others. The covert tall poppy syndrome rears it's ugly head to pulverise individuals who dare achieve excellence and positive contrast. An infected society suffers as its brightest members are pushed towards warmer lands that nurture pride and social responsibility for the benefit of all.

Instead of embracing an exceptional outlier, the bell curve throws them back onto the homogenous bed of familarity with an appropriate sound effect. Welcome home Mr Tryhard.

Thankfully, the Japanese resist this. From the bus driver on your morning commute to the barman salting your grilled chicken at day's end. A passionate desire to have ones garden lush and healthy regardless of size. Leadership by example encourages all to aspire towards the sharp end through an unspoken feeling of societal cohesiveness.

Like a supportive running group. Cramps which ordinarly reduce one to walk fade with the surrounding rhythmic drive for excellence. To look beyond the individual's desires and do the right thing by those around you.

The reward is an inherent sense of calm. The head dives into the pillow knowing a positive contribution was made to the kitty. Instant satisfaction may be lacking but it is replaced by a deeper sense of self worth with the longevity to resist unfortunate nay-sayers who try to dilute it.

Lost in the Middle

Buddha rocks. About time Buddhism mirrored Christianity and embraced secular corruption. Millions of hypermanic youth can't be wrong. If something more ancient than time itself becomes "uncool," just modify the hell out of it until it befriends your Chuck Taylors and witty graphic T-shirt.

There are many stories of Buddha's origin, but the grossly abridged version is predictably the best. Essentially, there lived a young boy named Sid who was unhappy with the world. Everywhere he looked there were unhappy people chasing impossible dreams and reaching new levels of lunacy like having different iPods for different situations. He quickly realised that people were inherently stupid, pursuing infinite apparitional goals that became less achievable the closer they approached.

He exclaimed loudly "Fuck this!" (or words to that effect). Equipped with the coping skills of a six year old boy, he ran into the metaphorical forest to sit under an equally metaphorical tree and ponder his new predicament. After an elasped three days or so, he became bored and wanted to go home.

At that point, and without any fanfare, he discovered The Middle Way. No, not another pretentious cafe in Perth, rather a realisation that moderation was the key to life. The multiple iPod owner was idiotic but the tree shrouded thinker equally so. Defining something as good or bad was merely a choice made in your own mind, quite distinct from the reality that it was neither.

Quoting The Age's Catherine Deveny (Australia's equivalent to Buddha): "nothing is ever as good or bad as you think it will be."

Or is it? The problem with humans is we're too smart for our own good. Too lazy to walk, we invent a four wheeled device that transports us from home to work whilst perforating the ozone layer along the way. When it comes to choosing one, the smart human has already decided yet still undergoes the arduous ritual of buying magazines laden with bikini clad girls to "read the comparison tests." He painstakingly wades through voluptuous mounds of information sub-consciously ignoring negative reports until he convinces himself of his pre-determined choice.

Reality is no match for the persuasiveness of cognitive dissonance. It's our best attribute - the ability to convince ourselves of truth that doesn't exist.

So why can't we use this for positive effect? That grumpy bastard at work, maybe he's had a fight with his wife. That dickhead in the imported Japanese car, maybe he pulled in front at the traffic light because he's late for the birth of his first child. Yeah right. It would make no difference which way you swung, except if you chose the positive you'd be spared the premature squirt of adrenaline that compresses your lifespan by at least half a day.

Maybe the best choice is neutrality. Take a lesson from Buddha - he went crazy so you don't have to. Not everything in life happens for a reason, bad things happen with surprisingly similar frequency to the good. Apply cognitive dissonance and suddenly "only bad things happen to me." How tragic. With the same effort, you could convince yourself of the opposite. It's a miracle, your life is now filled with rainbows and small leprechauns.

Dishonest? Who cares. Embrace your human flaw and let the pendulum swing in your favour for a change, it's instinctively trying to find the middle way.