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The Extraordinary Man The Invisible Man, the Native Son and the Entrepreneur

Books can push the boundaries of our knowledge and force us to think of things in a way that we otherwise could not. They offer us an experience through the eyes of others and it’s easy to read into them more than was intended, but there is a gift in how a story can play on our imagination. Any book whose cover compares it to Ellison’s “Invisible Man” Wright’s “Native Son” and Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” has a pretty high standard to live up to. “The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga lives up to it. The story telling is great, but the depth of social criticism/observation is what makes it smart. Plenty of people will read it and find it interesting, but when you consider it in the light of its call from the darkness it is so much more.

Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov makes the case for the extraordinary man; the person who can commit a crime, even a murder and it should be excused because of the greater good which is possible due to of the existence of this extraordinary person. Part of his own personal reasoning is that in ridding the world of a bad person he is able to rise up and do more good (not that he actually does a whole lot of good, but the argument is more about potential). Munna/Balram, aka. “The White Tiger” doesn’t try to make the argument, he tries to live the argument, to show that even though his crime is a crime, the result has offered something new and good to others. His rise offers a different perspective to others that are like he was and creates a new way of doing things, maybe even a better way of doing things. They are two men with potential whose circumstances are preventing them from realizing the possibilities they imagine. On the other hand “The White Tiger” is also a version of Bigger Thomas driving around the rich man who is part of the establishment, which suppresses him and feeling empowered by every step towards the eventual end. He feels stronger when the deed is done. He is the invisible man not even really understood by those in his own world and who is discovering his eloquence by telling his own narrative, but he has also become one of the visible even when it seemed impossible.

The liberation from the chicken coop, the breaking of the cycle and the defiance of caste hold in them the power to inspire (though hopefully not to murder, but perhaps to revolution). It’s a modern tale of oppression and a person finally having enough. The portrait is of a reality, which contains an understanding of how things are and yet at the same time his refusal to be limited by them. That truth is revealed by the clarity with which he can be both critical and contemplative in the portrayal of his own life. Perhaps the most important realization is that it is not just his own culture, his own country, but the influences of the whole world, which both created his cage and pushed him to get out of it. You can’t help but hear the underlying critique of western culture and the almost playful prodding into the vagaries of Chinese culture as well.

Wrapped in the framework of cultural criticism, corruption, murder and personal narrative we are forced to ask: What must we be willing to do to accomplish the impossible? How do the powerless rise? Can one person’s triumph be called a revolution? Do the ends justify the means? Is Raskolnikov right about extraordinary men and their ability to bend the rules or even break them so that something good, something “extraordinary” can happen? Or on a personal level, who are your invisibles; the people that you don’t see or who you fail to recognize the value of?

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Philanthropy

This summer there was a show called “The Philanthropist” that aired six or seven episodes. The premise was that a billionaire looses his son and on a business trip to Africa he ends up saving the life of a little boy about the age his son was and it inspires him to a kind of ultra philanthropy of risking his life and using his money to make positive things happen in the world. There’s more to it than that, but my point is not to give a review of the show, but rather to ponder the motivations for why we do things for others.

It might be nice to have the financial resources to bring medicines to help cure or vaccinate an entire country, or to have the kind of influence to open a border so that food and water can get from one village to another, but just because most of us can’t do those things doesn’t mean we can’t do good. So, what makes us give of our selves, our time, our energy, our passions, our hearts and every other resource at our disposal to do good for others?
Ultimately for the average person it comes down to believing in the possibility of a better world and being willing to do something about it. It also comes down to believing in yourself enough to see that you, yes you, can make that difference or at least be a part of it.
We tend to see philanthropy as what only the rich can do, but the reality is that we all must be philanthropists. The word itself means, “love of humankind.” We all need to care enough about humanity to fight for it. We have to be willing to stand up when rights are being taken, when people are starving, when injustice occurs. If we love humanity enough and believe in ourselves enough, the world can be better, the world will be better.
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Cheese/Pumpkin


It is truly a gift to know what you want. To be consistent in your likes and desires (not in a sense of excluding those things which you may not like, but rather a confidence in the things that you do) can make some of life’s decisions much simpler. When I asked my daughter what she wanted her pumpkin to look like there was no hesitation; “cheese.” Cheese is one of her favorite things (especially orange cheese) so I suppose it just seemed obvious that her pumpkin should be carved to represent something she likes. It was just as simple for her when asked what kind of birthday party she wanted to have; “orange” and she has already decided on “white” for her three year old party. If only every decision we make could be this simple. “This is what I like, there is no need for it to be something else, so this is what it will be.” Maybe most of our decisions probably should or at least could be that simple. It’s not a question of denying variety or of avoiding new things, it’s a question of finding that thing which you truly love or which you enjoy and letting that love or joy be your guide.

I get that there are often extenuation circumstances and external influences and I am in favor of change and new things, but so often if something seems good and right we need to give our selves permission to just go with it. At times this kind of thinking creates the need to ask forgiveness and the simple becomes complicated, but other times a pumpkin that looks like cheese is just right.
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seriously

The most persuasive argument is often made by the one who is able to be serious and deal with serious things without taking them self too seriously. I think this is the appeal of shows like The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Every once in a while they may cross the line, but even those who may disagree can listen to them in a more open way because of the way they present things. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti was on The Daily Show tonight and while I admit that to even go on The Daily Show you have to have a sense of humor, what I appreciated was that he was addressing a serious issue that clearly holds deep personal meaning for him, but he could genuinely laugh it off when someone in the audience called him a liar and even sincerely offer to talk with the person one on one. He even made a joke about Mickey Mouse. I don’t really want to talk about the points he made or even the issue of Israel and Palestine, what I want to take note of is the way he talked about it. In dealing with any polarizing issue you really do have to be able to sometimes disassociate or find some way of easing your own tension. If you can’t, you run the risk of getting so caught up that you can’t hear any voice that does not sound like your own. We have to be able to not only hear, but dialog with those who disagree with us otherwise we get no where. It gives me hope to see anyone, especially leaders who have the willingness to listen, the ability to respect and the desire to engage. Those who are willing to debate in the highest and most sincere way and to maybe even change their minds for the good of the people are the ones we need.

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the parts and the whole

The tea shop in town has a pineapple carrot cake that I enjoy a piece of every couple of weeks. Today I got a piece on the way to the park with Ainsley so we could share a snack while we played off our excess energy for the day. When we took a break from testing every apparatus at the park to see if it was still the same as it was the day before, we bit into our treat and enjoyed the combination of flavors as the moist cake melted in our mouths. After a couple of bites Ainsley asked, “what’s in it?” Ainsley loves to help cook things and she has an insatiable curiosity so this question wasn’t exactly a surprise. The surprise came when after the first ingredient I listed (pineapple) her response was, “I don’t like pineapple.” I have never heard her say she didn’t like pineapple before, but the part that got me thinking was that she liked the cake despite of the things in it which by themselves she may not like. I don’t like walnuts, I don’t like eggs, and I am not really even all that fond of carrots, but I like the cake too and all of those things are in it. I could do without the walnuts, but otherwise it really is good.

The thought however was not about the food, my thought was about how often we can fail to appreciate something because we get distracted by the parts. Rarely do we find something that we can truly say we like every thing about it or them, but if we can focus on the whole, perhaps we can appreciate the parts which go into it. If you love someone that doesn’t mean that you like every little detail about them, but what you love is how everything about them comes together to make them who they are.
That part sounds great, but what happens when we use the same logic applied to other things (beyond love and food that is)? Is it the same concept as “the ends justify the means?” Are we supposed to appreciate or at least get past all the parts that go into a positive outcome because the outcome really is good? I guess that’s the problem when we take a metaphor about a piece of cake too far.
Reality is somewhere in between. The parts do matter, but so does the whole and sometimes we have to look at things both ways.
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Awkwardness

Aside from the fact that “awkward” is an awkward word, I was confronted today by an awkwardness that occurs far too often. I took my daughter to an indoor play space where usually she is able to see some of her friends, but today there were only a few kids there and she didn’t know any of them. The strange awkwardness I felt was I as followed her around the room (at her request) I walked by the other parent’s and kids and though we acknowledged each other’s presence it was like some barrier prevented us from actually talking to each other. I am not an extravert, though I often play one in my life, so I will own some responsibility for the awkwardness, but introvert or not once I actually pondered the situation I couldn’t help but feel silly. How often do we find ourselves in situations like this? The kids didn’t seem to notice though they kind of ignored each other too it wasn’t so obvious and there were no pretensions, they were just too busy doing their own thing. It’s funny to me because I find myself willing to talk to strangers in situations where I have more reasons not too, but here I was in a group that shares an affinity- we have kids in the same age group and we are living on an island together where I am fairly well known and it took me nearly twenty minutes to say hello and introduce myself. I am not sure why, perhaps it would be a good study to attempt to explain awkwardness, but I also have a feeling that it’s awkward because there is no reason for it. I did eventually speak up and start a conversation, but it couldn’t erase the vestiges of the barrier that like a cloud still separated us.

I suppose this falls into the category of “wouldn’t it be nice if…” but I find myself instead wondering what awkwardness teaches us. Apprehension, fear and even anger have a way of motivating us or protecting us, so maybe awkwardness can do the same. Maybe the answer is to always ask why and the opportunity is to move beyond it or retreat into it. Either way I guess that until or unless awkwardness seises to exist we may as well learn from it and I feel a sort of calling to find ways of removing it where ever I can (starting with my self).
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The kindness of strangers

With a 35lb wiggly two year old in one hand and an umbrella in the other I walked in the driving rain to preschool this morning while dressed in my nicest slacks and black leather shoes as I mentally prepared for the funeral that I would be presiding at in just an hours time. The walk is probably not much more than a quarter mile and I prefer not to drive anywhere that I can walk to, but today I had considered it. About halfway to the school I saw a man in a silver VW golf pull over and start backing towards us. I didn’t recognize the car or as it turned out the man inside it, but it was clear that he was pulling over to talk to me. As I pulled even with him he rolled his window down and offered us a ride to where ever we needed to get to. I was touched and inspired by this stranger who saw us getting quite wet despite the umbrella and offered to help. I declined since we were only about one hundred feet from our destination, but I thanked him profusely for stopping and offering to keep us dry.

A couple of years ago when my eldest (is seems funny to refer to her as that since I sometime still can’t believe I have another daughter who I hope will come home from the hospital soon) was born I wrote an article for the local news paper about how babies bring out the best in people. People smile more and traffic comes to a halt when a person with a stroller wants to cross the street, but today I don’t think it was because I was carrying the cutest two year old on the planet that this man stopped. I think he stopped because he saw someone who might need his help and he had the means to help. It made me think about how great the world would be if we all did the same. Imagine a world where everyone who sees someone in need and who has the means to help is willing to stop, even if just for a moment, and offer what they could, what a world that could be. Not everyone would take the help and not everyone we think is in need is actually in need, but I believe that even the offer effects us. To encounter the willingness to help can be more powerful than the help itself.
I believe that all people have in them the kindness that the man in the silver golf had, but it’s nice when people are willing to let it out.
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A Second Bill of Rights-FDR

Yesterday afternoon I went to see Michael Moore’s new film “Capitalism: A Love Story.” I found it only slightly ironic that a movie critiquing capitalism was showing at one of our great edifices to it; the shopping mall, but in reality that is not the side of capitalism that Moore was focusing on. I feel like I could write a dozen or so blogs about the things brought up in this film (or at least the things that made me think about other things while seeing it). Perhaps I will, but for now I want to lift up just one very significant piece where he highlighted a speech made by FDR in January of 1944. In that speech FDR called for a second bill of rights that included:

“The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.” (as found on http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/globalrights/econrights/fdr-econbill.html)

As I heard these being read by President Roosevelt I couldn’t help but think of other similar lists of rights like the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/) which came just four years after FDR’s speech or the Millennium Development goals (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/), the list of lists goes on and on including the Social Creed of my own denomination which in 1908 called for many of the same rights.

“1908 Social Creed The Methodist Episcopal Church stands –

For equal rights and complete justice for all (people) in all stations of life.

For the principle of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions.

For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, injuries and mortality.

For the abolition of child labor.

For such regulation of the conditions of labor for women as shall safe guard the physical and moral health of the community.

For the suppression of the “sweating system.”

For the gradual and reasonable reduction of hours of labor to the lowest practical point, with work for all; and for that degree of leisure for all which is the condition of the highest human life.

For a release from employment one day in seven.

For a living wage in every industry.

For the highest wage that each industry can afford, and for the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised.

For the recognition of the Golden Rule and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy for all social ills.”


The problem is that these lists of rights are just that, lists of rights. How many people have even heard of them, much less read through them? And more to the point, who is doing anything to make them a reality and not just a really nice goal to have “someday.” According to the agreement made by all member nations of the UN the “Universal Declaration” was/is supposed to be “disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.” Is that happening? The front page of the Millennium Goals website talks about the gap in support where countries are failing to live up to their pledges. How can there be a greater priority than that of human rights?

I know that there are good things going on in the world and good people working to make the world better. I know that each one of these lists has well intentioned people behind it and the hope of becoming a reality. I also know that each of us could do more than we are and I know that not enough people know. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has had a public service campaign entitled “The More Your Know” for the past 20 years and I think their goal is a good one: to let people know what they can do.


Sir Francis Bacon said that, “Knowledge itself is power.” I believe that the more you learn the less likely you are to stand by without doing something and the more likely you are to stand up when your own rights are being infringed upon. I have had the privilege to teach about social justice here in my own country and abroad and watch as the lights go on in someone’s eyes as they begin to see themselves as a person of worth, a person who has rights. Just imagine if everyone had that light in them; darkness, evil and oppression could not exist.

People need to know and people need to act.

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Short Cuts

I was out for a run the other day and it just wasn’t going well. My legs felt heavy and perhaps in the back of my mind I was lamenting my lost glory days and briefly allowing myself to dwell on the fact that at least in this I am but a shadow of my former self. As I ran I began to think of corners I could cut and short cuts I could take (no one would know but me, but then again no one would care but me either). The funny thing is that my thought process lead me into a deeper place of reflection on short cuts in general and somehow the running got easier so I ended up runner further in stead of actually taking a short cut.

I am not in favor of doing things the hard way, but I don’t appreciate taking the easy way out either. In math for instance, we often seek the short cuts and I just saw a man on TV who is called the “human calculator” because he has perfected the short cut. As I think back on it though I will never forget the lecture I received from my uncle (the math teacher) about the beauty of showing all your work and appreciating a well thought out proof. I was reminded of this lecture the other day as I watched “The Big Bang Theory” where for several minutes they depicted a montage of two physicists staring at a mathematical formula for days (all set to music of course) and I suppose I realized that everything else perception is in the eyes of the beholder. For the person who loves math they can appreciate both the short cut and the long way as much for the ingenuity and creativity it took to come up with the short cut as they do the way it simplifies things and still want to look at it both ways (just for fun). I run and I rarely take the short cut because I am running to run, not to get somewhere faster.
If you can do something better and faster most of the time you should, but sometimes the journey matters more than how you get there and I can respect that too. In life I like to do most things fast, but in my daily living I appreciate the little moments and almost never hurry. My hope is that we don’t miss something in the rush and at the same time can be thoughtful enough to remove the obstacles that don’t need to be there.
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The Artistry of God

On an evening run at sunset my first thought was to burst into the song, “Sunrise Sunset,” but my second thought was about how incredible this universe is. If there is ever any doubt that God is an artist all one needs to do is look to the heavens. I have had the privilege to see sunsets paint the mountains in every shade of purple and pink and to watch over the vastness of the oceans as the sun grows impossibly large and then falls off the end of the earth. I have seen the sunrise paint the dense green of a forest with its golden hues and bring out the most dazzling colors that can even make a dirt road look beautiful under a canopy of leaves and light. I have looked to the heavens in a place where our light is not allowed to diminish God’s and I been awed by the shear number of the stars above glowing in the immensity of the universe. I have walked through snowy fields bathed in the reflection of the northern lights, the aurora borealis, a splash of every color dancing in the dark cold sky.

In every instance I can’t help but wonder how different the world might be if every person in it took the time to admire the artistry of God in these moments that happen every day. You don’t have to be in the forest or at the ocean or in a remote northern field to appreciate the glory of creation, but you do have to be willing to look up and recognize the artist who made us all.