I had a wonderful meeting with an expat whose blog I have been following for almost a year now, I think. She is a very gifted writer and observer of what she experiences here and how it daily calls her own "being-ness" into question. I am not nearly as eloquent as she is, but I cannot find a better word right now, and for me, this is what I would like to talk about in this post, because I think it gets to heart of what I experience around me as "different". Suffice it to say, that meeting her in the local mall-center (cities are laid out like that around here...you have a suburb of sorts, but with a single central mall or two with everything you should need right there....no strip malls! YAY!....but oy, the traffic...) over tea and coffee and immediately delving into the HEART of what it means to be an immigrant, and what it means to be "of a culture" made me feel right at home and as though I had made my first new friend. What a blessing during a day of having to be alone with my thoughts so much. I came to THAT feeling yesterday, when I felt so very alone with my thoughts, because all the sounds and conversations around me were in Norwegian, so...there you have it. It may as well be static, so I'm alone with all of these ideas racing around in my brain, quite literally feeling like a ball in a pin-ball machine.
What we found ourselves finally coming to was this question, "What makes a life?" I poked around a bit on the internet to see what other people may have had to say on this topic, and found that very few people actually ask this question. It is either "What makes a GOOD life?" or "What makes a life WORTHWHILE", or "What makes a FULLFILLED life?", all of which are perfectly good questions, but I'm more interested in what I feel makes a LIFE. Just that. The verb "to be". What IS the looking glass through which I will look at my life tomorrow? next week? next year? when I am facing my death? Will I be measuring my life? Or will I just be taking it all in and smiling at it?
We, as Americans, are conditioned to measuring our lives, constantly. Everything we do has to be "worth it"...otherwise, why do something? In Norway, it is normal for almost everyone to have at least a Master's Degree, with many going on to complete their Ph.D's. I met someone who was working in a junior high school as a substitute teacher, and she was getting ready to defend her thesis for some sort of biology Ph.D. When I asked what she plans to do with this degree, what kind of wonderful job she would be able to get (because after all, isn't that why she started it?), she just looked at me like, "???????....I'm not planning to USE it! I just figured since I could GET it, it would be a nice thing to have, but I think I'm going to try this substitute teaching for awhile." She moved to Norway from Brooklyn 16 years ago and has never looked back.
I tell this story because it is one of the big differences I have found between our cultures. Americans are driven, having been raised from generation to generation against a backdrop of the Puritan ethic, and values espoused by Horatio Alger through stories like "Ragged Dick, the Matchboy." With a little luck and LOT of hard work, you will succeed and make your life better over time, and provide a better life for yourself and children. Is THIS why we toil? Is this why we constantly search? Is this why it is called a dream, because it cannot be real? Is this what I am searching for? A better life? What on earth is wrong with the life I HAVE? I can see that a thorough study of the effects of Capitalism vs. Socialism on personal motivation and one's satisfaction with life is in my near future....
A few years ago, I was visiting my cousin, Malgoszia, who is a farmer in Poland. We were making the perfunctory visit to the cemetery to pay our respects to our fathers and mothers and relatives, and next to our family's headstone was a barren area. She started to pull the weeds and told me quite matter-of-factly that this is where she will be. She wanted to keep it looking nice. I have come to really value a farmer's perspective on life. Not a big industrial farmer (doesn't that seem like such an oxymoron?), but a small farmer, who is intimately involved with each plant they harvest, each animal they butcher, each egg they collect, each cow they milk, each raindrop that falls or does not fall, each weather report they watch. These are people who really do live in the NOW. There is very little dreaming. There is only the reality that no matter what you dream and what you create in your life, you are STILL going to be pulling the weeds on your last resting place. Everyone is.
Thank YOU for sharing these thoughts! (I got teary-eyed, I admit it!) Many people have commented on FB, Twitter and the blog that they feel the same way -- we are not alone in this. I am just amazed at how engrained it is into our American psyches-- and I think we put a value on it (it has to be "WORTH"-while) precisely because our culture has placed such a high value on capital. And capital gains. In Norway you don't have to pay for your university education, so you are allowed to learn things for reasons other than a paycheck. We would call that a "handout" in the U.S., I guess. And we don't like those because nothing is free, you should have to EARN it (earn=monetary again), blah, blah, blah.
ReplyDelete*sigh*
But I very much liked the story of the Polish farmer and if you get a chance you must see "Folk ved Fjorden" - a gorgeous film about 2 elderly Norwegian farmers who were born and still live on their land. It was filmed just about 30 minutes from my house. It's in Norwegian, but I think you could understand quite a lot from the pictures.
Thanks, Jena...I'll put that in my database of things to watch. Perhaps we can rent it here at the house. I saw a similar type of short film about 2 French brothers who lived in a very small village who never married and still lived in the house they grew up in, and it just kind of chronicled their day, from rising to going to bed...We Americans would call it the mundacity of life, but I think the point of the film was to reveal how we actually dance through our lives, each movement an act of habitual choreography. Part of the interesting thing for me is that I do not have children. I think, for many, a sense of purpose is born with a child's birth, a sense of purpose that is beyond one's self. Perhaps this is the source of at least some of my ennui. Yet, as usual, the grass is ALWAYS greener, eh? I can hear friends of mine saying, "You can have MY kids!!!!" Yet the fact remains for me: without legacy, what creates meaning for my individual growth while I'm here? Thanks again for listening, and I hope to see you on Sunday at the stables!
DeleteI don't know if I can post links here, but will try. I love how this woman cares for her goats -- so lovingly -- and still slaughters them for sausages!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm-OVMxu50Q