Posts tagged with "social commentary"

Politics

Camping beach

Trolley shivers

Campfire

I got back from camp­ing on Monday, and had a great time. We went up as a group of 16, divid­ed into three sites. I resumed my role as the token Chinese guy, since I was the only one on the entire camp­ground. The sites were less than a three minute walk away from each oth­er. Activities con­sist­ed of bad­minton, ulti­mate fris­bee, read­ing, or just loung­ing. It was 20 degrees dur­ing the day so a lot of the time was spent in the shade. At night it dropped down to about 8 degrees, leav­ing most peo­ple shiv­er­ing in their sleep­ing bags or hud­dled around a camp­fire.

Some tried to swim, but the water was so cold that they end­ed up wad­ing. There was a com­pe­ti­tion every day to see who could stay neck deep in the water the longest, but they all end­ed in ties when every­one agreed that the idea was sil­ly and that suf­fer­ing through the icy water was not worth the poten­tial brag­ging rights.

camping drinks

Most peo­ple brought quite a bit of alco­hol (Wheaties actu­al­ly got a 2–8 just for him­self), and we were caught twice on the first night for hav­ing open alco­hol con­tain­ers off the sites. Fortunately, it was by two dif­fer­ent groups of rangers, so we got two warn­ings, instead of a warn­ing and then a fine with evic­tion.

Even when relax­ing on the camp­ground, with no time lim­its and no sched­ules, I dis­cov­ered that pol­i­tics had fol­lowed me there, to a place where one is sup­posed to for­get the stress and con­flicts of dai­ly life. It’s such a pity that life can be so com­pli­cat­ed in the midst of such serene sim­plic­i­ty, when the only thing that one should wor­ry about is how much beer one has left or whether a fire will be going in time for din­ner.

Something that I’ve long real­ized is that the pol­i­tics of life are every­where, most­ly preva­lent in uncom­mu­nica­tive or secre­tive sit­u­a­tions. An uncer­tain attrac­tion, a group of peo­ple with mutu­al dis­like for some­one, or per­haps even var­ied appro­pri­ate­ness in var­ied com­pa­ny are all typ­i­cal exam­ples I’ve most com­mon­ly run across and dealt with.

I always try to remain out of such com­plex affairs, in order to sim­pli­fy my life, in order to have clar­i­ty. By doing so, I find that things are much less uncer­tain, and I thus have less to wor­ry about. Of course, life thrusts me into such sit­u­a­tions whether I’m will­ing to par­tic­i­pate or not. After all, peo­ple will for­ev­er be upset by oth­ers. I find that I’ve been able to under­stand and sur­vive these sit­u­a­tions with increas­ing con­sis­ten­cy.

It’s quite a dif­fer­ent sto­ry when I am per­son­al­ly involved.

Serenity

I’ve come to under­stand the mind­sets of a few dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple when it comes to per­son­al prob­lems. Most peo­ple I know will sim­ply deal with any prob­lems, instead of fight­ing them head on. I find that I try to do the same thing some­times, but I tend to come out a lit­tle worse for wear. Most have prob­a­bly gained more seren­i­ty, some­thing that I’m still learn­ing to con­trol.

Yet when most peo­ple are deal­ing with their issues in a pas­sive man­ner, the meth­ods become even more diverse. Justification seems to be a very com­mon method, but many jus­ti­fy in dif­fer­ent ways.

Some that I know believe that life is sim­ply full of dis­ap­point­ments (a few Buddhist can­di­dates, I’m sure) and that any bad things that come their way should sim­ply be under­stood. They don’t get angry or upset, and they seem to come out on top of things in the end. Others try to ignore the prob­lems, since think­ing about them will only make things worse. Some that I know even use such bad sit­u­a­tions to their advan­tage by exag­ger­at­ing them for some cheap atten­tion. I even know oth­ers who are able to feel bet­ter by com­par­ing them­selves to oth­ers.

Some will sim­ply get depressed.

I find that I gen­er­al­ly fall in either the for­mer or the lat­ter cat­e­gories. I would hope so at least, since I’ve been in the lat­ter for a great part of my life. I’ve been able to deal with things a lit­tle bit bet­ter now, for about three years. I sup­pose that it’s some­thing that Rob was able to teach me, but prob­a­bly also due to the fact that I’ve had a good last three years. I’ve been able to see the oth­er side of life that so many oth­ers seem to be able to expe­ri­ence. I feel like I’ve only got­ten a taste, and that I should try to expe­ri­ence it again.

But God still owes me some seren­i­ty.

A Gift Is Not A Comment

I bought Aaron an MD play­er today. He’s been need­ing quite a few things, like his TV fixed, an aquar­i­um, a new hard-dri­ve, etc. so I thought I’d make it eas­i­er on him since his Discman just broke too. I’m not real­ly sure what he’ll say though. I’ve learned a lot about gift giv­ing with­in the last year, and I know that some peo­ple are very sen­si­tive about it. A while ago, I nev­er could have imag­ined some­one refus­ing to accept a gift, unless there was a sin­is­ter pur­pose, such as a bribe. I always felt like it was rude if some­one refused a legit­i­mate gift.

I sup­pose it’s sim­i­lar to the idea of hos­pi­tal­i­ty. Can it ever be rude to refuse some­one’s hos­pi­tal­i­ty? Even if they spend an inor­di­nate amount of time prepar­ing for such a thing? I’ve come to the con­clu­sion that it would­n’t be rude to decline an offer of hos­pi­tal­i­ty. After all, it is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the host to make sure that the guest is com­fort­able. If the guest refus­es hos­pi­tal­i­ty for what­ev­er rea­son, then that should be fine. The host should be hap­py with what­ev­er the guest is hap­py with.

It’s only with this exam­ple that I’ve come to under­stand the gift-giv­ing idea as well. If some­one refus­es to accept a gift from me, I would be fine with that. I sim­ply want to make the per­son hap­py.

Which is why I’m not wor­ried to give Aaron such a gift. I won’t be offend­ed in any way, no mat­ter what his reac­tion is.

I can’t wait.