September 11, 2012 [Mukilteo YMCA]

    Perhaps it is only a coincidence that I feel inspired to start writing here again. Why do I bother with saying today is a coincidence? Well, today is September 11, the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York and Washington DC. I was in 7th grade when the attacks happened. I graduated from high school in 2007 and college in 2011. Now I'm not going to say that I'm into any numerology, but my OCD is happy with the outcome.

    9/11/2001 was the start of me truly finding out who I was as I person. In the ensuing months I became more aware of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. As much as I would like not to admit this, OCD does play a part in my life. The web of thoughts that become stuck in my head and the reasons they stick there are a blessing and a curse. Over the years I've been able to to better control it, but I do have to stay on top of things.

    The next major turning point in my life occurred in college. Mostly it was living away from the family for a bit, but really it was my first introduction to the study of culture. Except for the exact day, I remember it exactly. The class was ANTH 201 (ANTH 203?), intro to culture and the teacher was Shila Baksi, a professor with a BA and MA from Calcutta, India. She was annoying. The section of the class on language, especially speech, was painful. She would tell us that some letter in a word would sound a certain way, but nobody could hear it. One, because her accent was not American and two none of us had ever thought about what we were saying in the sense of how it sounds. That knowledge was implicit.
    But walking out of that class, after about the second or third week, and looking around at the people on campus. How they talked with each other, how they avoided each other, how they looked, what they wore, why they used certain sounds to convey certain meanings, the idea that all this (the campus, the people, the culture) was the result of hundreds of years of accumulated and modified interaction replicated manifold times! It was a trip.
    The strangest part though, was when I realized that I was a part of this. I was the result of hundreds of years of interaction. That what I wore and what I said were part of a larger system, something bigger than every person I could see, but something we were all part of. I didn't understand all of it though. Things I couldn't explain or find reasons for. So, I decided to try and totally isolate myself from my culture, which is stupid because I was in my culture. After snapping out of my idiot experiment, and reading a few books on anthropologists who had taken the plunge into a different culture, I made a promise to myself to be a true fish out of water and go live somewhere else in the world for a while.

   Come senior year, I had my opportunity. Thanks to my mom, I received information on a volunteer opportunity in a country of my choice, in early March of 2011. I looked at the International Volunteer HQ website to see what they could offer me. Guatemala or Ecuador, I did take a few years of Spanish in high school. Tanzania, Africa is pretty different. But I didn't choose any of those. Nope, I chose, solely based on the logic that this destination was (nearly) in the exact opposite position on Earth from my home in the Western United States. I chose Nepal.

    Now, this journey to Nepal was more than just a physical trip. I learned how to let go. I understand how big the world is now and I want to get back into it! The US is not enough anymore. I can't believe I almost got a job being an engineer, honestly, that would have been a waste for me. As for what exactly happened in Nepal, I will post some of my journal entries here.

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May 23, 2012 [NW Corner of my House, Mukilteo, WA] Been a While

Well, it's been a while. I'm back though. Let's see what's new. Job.
That's it. Okay, now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

  Unbelievable amounts of order, space and individuality. That's what struck me upon my return to the states, and now that I have had some time to let those ideas rattle around in my head a bit I feel confident enough to share my findings.

  First, order. You must drive on this side of the road, you must pay this much in taxes, you must do this the way the government tells you to. An affront to our individuality? (More on that later) Or a catalyst for creating a modern nation? I'd like to think it was the latter. I'm talking about the order of law. Its use, its function, application, and impact. Law creates an external framework that all citizens have to abide by, it is the manifestation of norms and taboos into a codified set of references. The assumption behind most law seems to be an offshoot of Hobbes Leviathan, where the natural state is chaos and/or anarchy. Every man for himself and the only way to prevent us all from killing each other is to impose some sort of external authority. This authority is the law.

  The application of law is supposed to be fair across all gender, ethnicity, and with some exception, age. In reality this application is not always uniformly fair. Some individuals or groups receive favorable outcomes though the law while others must abide by its unfair discrimination. There are exceptions, like any situation, but these exceptions almost prove the rule of law itself. If one tries to disobey the law, swift retribution is almost always close behind. This brings us to impact.

  It is in the final impact of the law that we see the full extent of its influence and capabilities. Can you imagine if there were no road rules? Or commerce rules? The law, the government, is the reason why the United States is an economic superpower. The rules created allow business to prosper and foster new industry. The transportation networks, the communication networks, the financial stability, the political stability, all this can be attributed to the order of law. An environment to foster growth, both socially and economically.

  Did I mention how much !%@^#! space we have in this country? My Civic is gigantic, the house I live in has huuuuge windows and two yards, a kitchen the size of a bedroom, multiple bathrooms....and this is normal. Okay, you're thinking, so what. Why does it matter?
Well, you ignorant fool (LOL), why do we need so much space? It's borderline wasteful, it IS wasteful. But that's kind of the problem. We have too much space. Our roads, gigantic, our houses, massive, our cars, big. It's probably even worse out here on the West Coast.

  Last, individuality. If there is one thing on this planet that is American in all shapes and forms, it is individuality. We prize the individual more than any other concept. The person who goes against the grain, or questions authority is (for the most part) idealized as a visionary.

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