I have decided to know more than myself, more than the comforts that surround me, more than the affluence I'm blessed to receive. The life of Amory Blaine was a life of fiction, and I mean that in a far deeper way than the simple fact he was a character in a novel. He choose to capitalize on the corruption of a culture that Fitzgerald wrote, was "a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." I see a lot of this blinded view of reality in America today, in its Church, and in myself. We choose to see the world through fictional lenses, stained with security few in the world know.
I want to live a life of non-fiction.
I've been throwing this idea around in my head for a while. Lost in a sea of stress and errands and preparation to leave the country last minute for a disaster response trip to Nicaragua a few weeks ago, I said to myself that I was at the time lost in non-fiction, burdened with the realities of the world to a point at which I longed to escape. It was then that I picked up Fitzgerald's novel off the shelf, seeking to self-medicate with stories of Amory Blaine's attempts to woo various women in a fictional paradise.
It didn't take me long after reaching the hurricane ravished, rural village of Tuara, Nicaragua, to despise the vanities of Amory Blaine, and more so my desire to allow my own life to drift into such listless realms. Somewhere in a woman's story of loosing her 23 year old son at sea during Hurricane Felix, or a mother's explanation that her beautiful 10 year old girl had been raped when she was 7, I realized that life rarely exists in the world middle to upper class Americans have created for themselves. It was in a moment walking to the well to retrieve water to bathe when I saw the before mentioned 10 year old girl scrubbing the laundry of her family that I resigned myself to break the American mold and live a life of non-fiction.
The world simply isn't safe, comfortable, warm, with riches and a full belly for most of those who live in it. I live the simple life as an individual born into the upper 1%. I believe there is a place here, and good I can accomplish, so I have no intentions of simply disposing my blessings. However, I must keep my life's relation to the rest of humanity in focus, and I must keep the picture clear. My life must be one of non-fiction.
1 comment:
Hey mate, I second that motion. Thanks for putting it in tangible words once again for me. Though, I have to remind you that every culture, everywhere, has their methods of escape. It is only human, and to ignore them is insanity. You know this better than I, right? Just keep climbing :)
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