Gen article

this is an excerpt frm Gen's 'WAITING TO BE SAVED...'

The reality was that it was sadder for us to witness his disability then it was for him to live with it because likewise, we can’t imagine our lives being any other way. Would his life really be better with a corporate job and a blackberry in hand or can fulfillment still be found in watching the snow fall? Would his life genuinely be more worthwhile with bigger dreams and bigger vision instead of contentment in the small joys and abundance in everyday life? It’s a classic case of having tunnel vision but, as North Americans, I think that it’s begun to reach out into far more than just the boy across the street. It lead me consider how many other things we impose our sense of happiness upon assuming that our “shoes” are the only ones worth walking in.

This very question also brought about my very mixed emotions about the Middle East and Islamic culture. We, as a society, are very quick to judge their motivations and intentions. We consider them violent, oppressed and behind the times socially. I agree that there are elements of their culture that I struggle with and violence is certainly one of them. I am appalled at the idea of stoning a person because of their infidelities but I’m equally appalled at the idea of dragging a black man behind a pick up truck because of the colour of his skin…and that happened in the U.S. We look at them and see mistreatment of women and distortion of religion. For all we know, they may look at us and see misguided youth and a value system so deteriorated that we have entire magazines devoted to celebrity gossip. We see them covered head to toe in a veil as a lack of rights and they may see us without enough self-respect to dress for any purpose other than sex. We assume that all of these things, because we don’t share them, must mean that they are unhappy. We assume that their lack of reality television and wardrobe attire to choose from must mean that they feel deprivation that we, of course, need to rescue them from. To take over another country under a cloak of good intention and to assume that our way of doing things would suit them better poses a lot of questions for me. First and foremost, it sparks the question of whether or not our way even works for us nonetheless anyone else?

On that note, let’s take this opportunity to look at our lives for a moment; we are a society of great wealth and consumption. We work long hours and grow up too fast. We are connected to each other at all times while never really being connected to anyone at all. We are in a constant hurry to get to places that they don’t generally want to be. We have the convenience of doing our grocery shopping from home and all the while, we’ve never been more stressed. Our bodies are filled with disease and our minds are filled with dis-ease. We aim for bigger houses, faster cars and fancier televisions when we should be aiming for broader perspectives, grandeur experiences and better relationships…and I don’t mean with our cell phones.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging the state of how we live our lives. It’s all relative and our necessities sit pretty low on the hierarchy of needs. More importantly though, I feed the beast in my own way as well but what I’m questioning is whether or not our morals and values are really the appropriate measuring stick by which all others should be judged? We live lives that seem privileged and innovative. We live lives that seem a step above the rest but we also live lives that are out of touch with the very basics of what it means to be human. Life is simply not meant to be lived in nothing but a frenzy of technology and corporate ladders.