Preponderance of Insanity
While I'm still floundering with an adept synopsis of the Tucson fare to compliment Mikey's latest post I have, on the other hand, stumbled on something interesting in a recent read worth tossing out there since Moll-star, Pimp, Mikey, and Dimmy have traveled the roads of Thailand. To wit:
"Whereas your average Westerner does all he can to direct and control his fate, the latter-day Thai is no closer to adopting this attitude to life than were his ancestors a hundred or two hundred years ago. If there is any aspect of modern Thai psychology which continues to accept in toto the Buddhist doctrine of karma (so written) it is surely in the conviction that que sera, sera. At first glance such fatalism may seem backward, even perverse given the dazzling spectrum of weapons Westerners now have in their arsenal against the vicissitudes of life; but anyone who spends much time in the kingdom quickly finds themselves questioning the wisdom, and even the sincerity, of Western attitudes. When he has paid up his taxes, his life insurance, his medical insurance, accident insurance, retrained himself in the latest marketable skills, saved for his kids' education, paid alimony, bought the house and car which his status absolutely requires he buy within the rules of his particular tribe, given up alcohol abuse, nicotine, extramarital sex and recreational drugs, spent his two-week vacation on some self-improving (but safe) adventurous holiday, learned to be hypercareful of what he says or does with members of the opposite sex, the average Westerner may -and often does- wonder where his life went. He may also -and invariably does- feel cheated when he discovers existentially that all the worrying and all the insurance payments have availed him not a jot or a tittle in protecting him against fire, burglary, flood, earthquake, tornado, the sack, terrorist activity, or his spouse's precipitate desertion with the kids, the car and all the spare cash in the joint bank account. True enough, in a kingdom without safety nets a citizen may very well be brutally flattened by accident or illness, where a Westerner might have bought himself a measure of protection, but in between the bumps a Thai still lives life in a state of sublime insouciance. The standard Western observation is that the Thai is living in a fool's paradise. Perhaps, but might the Thai not reply that the Westerner has built himself a fool's hell?
"Whereas your average Westerner does all he can to direct and control his fate, the latter-day Thai is no closer to adopting this attitude to life than were his ancestors a hundred or two hundred years ago. If there is any aspect of modern Thai psychology which continues to accept in toto the Buddhist doctrine of karma (so written) it is surely in the conviction that que sera, sera. At first glance such fatalism may seem backward, even perverse given the dazzling spectrum of weapons Westerners now have in their arsenal against the vicissitudes of life; but anyone who spends much time in the kingdom quickly finds themselves questioning the wisdom, and even the sincerity, of Western attitudes. When he has paid up his taxes, his life insurance, his medical insurance, accident insurance, retrained himself in the latest marketable skills, saved for his kids' education, paid alimony, bought the house and car which his status absolutely requires he buy within the rules of his particular tribe, given up alcohol abuse, nicotine, extramarital sex and recreational drugs, spent his two-week vacation on some self-improving (but safe) adventurous holiday, learned to be hypercareful of what he says or does with members of the opposite sex, the average Westerner may -and often does- wonder where his life went. He may also -and invariably does- feel cheated when he discovers existentially that all the worrying and all the insurance payments have availed him not a jot or a tittle in protecting him against fire, burglary, flood, earthquake, tornado, the sack, terrorist activity, or his spouse's precipitate desertion with the kids, the car and all the spare cash in the joint bank account. True enough, in a kingdom without safety nets a citizen may very well be brutally flattened by accident or illness, where a Westerner might have bought himself a measure of protection, but in between the bumps a Thai still lives life in a state of sublime insouciance. The standard Western observation is that the Thai is living in a fool's paradise. Perhaps, but might the Thai not reply that the Westerner has built himself a fool's hell?
posted by Aden at 10:36 PM
1 Comments:
Where have I read this before? Alex Garland perhaps? Good take on things, indeed, we exist in imaginary worlds.
- Ridley
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