Falling in love

ok OK. I know it has been forever since I’ve written. I’m sorry. Listen… it has just been a chill couple of weeks with few grand events outside, but many grand changes that have gone on inside of me.  It may seem kind of silly that I needed to come all the way to India in order to seriously take time and ponder about my life.  However, I am a firm believer in shaking things up, living diversely, and exploring life, which is why I love travelling so much… because each time I go somewhere, I learn things I never could have learned if I would have stayed in the same place doing the same things.  Putting yourself in a different situation where you are uncomfortable and have to learn to live or act in a different way is a great way to open your mind and open your eyes and see things how they truly are, no longer blinded by the culture that we so comfortably follow after staying for so long.  It really makes you think about your life and yourself and who you are, and what you’re doing!

So… like I said, we haven’t been out and about a ton lately.  We have gone a few places. I’m sorry the photos are few.  Most of the places we went to recently I shot almost entirely in film, which is another reason I haven’t posted recently.  But here are a few from the last couple of weeks…

The other day we celebrated Krishna's birthday!  We went to a Hare Krishna festival (yes like the Hare Krishna's in Spanish Fork) and we had to chant 'hare krisha hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare, hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare' 108 times as we stepped on each one of these stones

this is our vocals teacher performing with his friend... amazing!

Then we went to a Hindu festival for Vishnu's wife who they dressed up as a fish, which was very special because it was the first time this has ever been done!

This is at the Sikh Gurudwara... see the story below :)

Some photos from beach road pretty near to our house... this is a submarine that is now some sort of museum

Now, you are probably wondering why this blog post is called falling in love.  I’m sure you are all thinking I met someone. Right?? Wrong.  Sorry.  No boy/girl love story here (don’t worry mom!).  This one is much more exciting and deep and real than your average romantic comedy.  This is something that is achieved through work, trial, conflict, discomfort, respect, awe, deep emotion, learning, change, and those little moments when you stop and look around you and just take it all in.  I am falling absolutely and deeply in love with the culture here.

I had an awesome experience the other day.  For my project I am speaking with a lot of gurus from different religions.  Yesterday we went to visit the Sikhs! 

It is one of my favorite religions to study.  In fact, when I first got here I told Doctor Nuckolls that I love Sikhism so much if I weren’t LDS and didn’t know the truthfulness of the gospel, I would probably be a Sikh.  He told me that was the first time he had ever heard that, hah!

These people are INCREDIBLE.  They are so incredibly kind and inviting and soo down to earth.  We showed up and about 30 seconds after we arrived, two ladies showed up.  One was a Sikh, and the other was a Hare Krishna who was from a different province.  She is also studying religions all over India and happened to be in Vizag right now.  We became great friends! :) She told me all about everything she had learned in Sikhism and how amazingly these people had treated her.  You see, she came down to Vizag and on her way, ALL of her bags got lost.  She arrived with not even 10 rupees.  She knew there was a Sikh Gurduwara (temple) here in Vizag and she found her way to it, because in her town she had been very close to Punjabi people (where most of the Sikhs live) and she hoped to find some help there.  They took her in, gave her food, clothes, and paid for her ticket to go back home.  She translated for us all day and it was fun being surrounded by English, Hindi, Telugu, and Punjabi.  We also represented all different religions… LDS, Hinduism, Hare Krishna, Bramakumares, and Sikhism.  All kinds of different languages and cultures and religions in that one group, yet we all got along so well and enjoyed each other’s company so much!  I interviewed the main priest there and they gave us milk and cookies, and lunch, and performed a little concert for us.  I left just feeling so uplifted.  As we drove home in the rickshaw, the ladies that were sharing with us mentioned to Rajyalakshmi our translator that they had seen us at the Vishnu fish goddess temple the other day.  Then another guy got on and we looked at each other and recognized each other.  He works at Barista—the internet café where I always go.  All of the workers know me!  So we smiled and waved.  We rode home and I watched outside and just had that feeling, you know?  Where everything is just so good.  Where there is hope for the world.  Because there are some seriously good people, and differences don’t matter.  I felt incredibly grateful for this time that I have to be here to experience the things I am experiencing and especially to learn the things that I am learning.

It has been a profound couple of weeks.  I have spent SO much time thinking and pondering.  As I have mentioned before, I love documentaries. Mmmmm. :) So sometimes I get on documentary kicks and just download a whole bunch and watch them all.  The last couple of weeks I have been watching documentaries (and other movies) basically every night.  I have randomly become interested in learning about human trafficking, so I have watched a lot of incredible documentaries about that, along with some other movies that I have been thinking a lot about.  I want to talk about 3 movies/categories that I have been thinking about.  They all interconnect in certain ways.

So the first one, as I mentioned, is human trafficking.  I watched multiple documentaries… 3 of which I would totally recommend—‘Child Sex Trafficking on the Internet—Selling the Girl Next Door’, ‘Human Trafficking Documentary’, and ‘Trafficking of Children in the United States’.  They are all on youtube.  I knew that trafficking is a problem all over the world, and I even knew that it occurred in the United States.  But I did not realize that it supposedly occurs more in the United States than anywhere else in the world.  What???  Ok, this is seriously a big issue.  The documentaries are very informational, and the true stories are seriously heartbreaking.  But I think it’s important to be aware.  This happens everywhere.  This happens in the US.  It is one of the biggest money-making industries next to the drug trade.  This happens in Utah.  This happens in our neighborhoods!  PLEASE.  Learn about it, research it, become informed.  Watch the documentaries… they really are good (although one of them in the end turns into kind of a funny preacher trying to get the audience to pray with him haha but hey, sometimes cheesy is good).  This of course is only one of many many issues going on in the world today, but I think it is worth being aware of because that is one of the best things we can do to stop it.  

The second one is called ‘America the Beautiful’.  There’s also a sequel, and they are in the process of making a third one I believe.  This is available on Netflix.  I just bought it on iTunes because it was so worth it to me.  It talks about America’s obsession with beauty, looking into topics such as make-up, plastic surgery, modeling and advertising, and many more.  It is a must-see.  I feel like being outside of America has helped me to see our culture more clearly.  Now, I know there are always both positive and negative aspects of every culture.  But I have never really realized how deeply obsessive and addictive America and Western culture is with such superficial topics.  Basically it all boils down to our bodies.  How we view them, how we portray them, how we use them.  So many of us focus on fulfilling our carnal desires… needing attention whether it’s positive or negative, doing whatever it takes to make our bodies ‘happy’.

The sad thing is how much the media knowingly plays a role in this, and how much it affects us.  In the first ‘America the Beautiful’, many people in the media industry are interviewed.  They are very aware of the weaknesses of humans, and they use that in order to make money for themselves.  Now, I’m not saying that the people in these industries are purely evil or anything.  I don’t believe they necessarily want people to feel bad about themselves.  But they do continue to do what they do just in order to make money.  Just as in the human trafficking industry (and pornography and drugs and alcohol and whatever else).  In fact, I was absolutely shocked that Craigslist used to be the leading online website that hosted human trafficking (of course illegally and “secretly”).  The interviewee in one of the human trafficking documentaries interviewed one of the company leaders at Craigslist about what exactly is being sold in their adult section of the website.  He had no words, and could not even answer her.  After a long awkward silence, he eventually just cowardly walked away because he couldn’t full out lie to the camera and of course couldn’t tell them that he knew exactly what was going on and that they were doing absolutely nothing to stop it.  This caused an out roar in the news and Craigslist ended up shutting down their adult section.  That same time, the other leading site for human trafficking—backpage.com—had their sales go up by hundreds of thousands of dollars immediately.  It is totally obvious what is going on, but nothing is really being done to stop it.   In the media industry, many people knowingly play on the strings of human weakness in order to make money… causing the society to become weaker and weaker in its morals and values and causing addictions to rise.  Does a person’s ability to perform sexual activities determine their value?  Does a person’s weight, facial structure, or hair determine their worth?  No. It does not.  But what’s sad about our culture is that we are lead to believe that these things do determine our worth and value.  Is it all the companies’ and media’s fault?  Of course not.  We are the ones who are making the choices to listen, to follow, to become obsessive, addicted, and eventually desensitized to the worth of a human soul.  So it is a two-fold problem.  But how can it be stopped or fixed?  Is it even possible??

Being here in India has helped me see that it is possible to have a society where people actually do live morally.  Where people do actually value the worth of the human body.  People respect each other.  We went to a movie in the theater the other day called Chennai Express.  It, like many other Bollywood films, is a love story.  And how much physical contact was there in the movie? None. They never even kissed, not once!!  In fact, Shahrukh Khan, one of India’s most famous and popular Bollywood actor, has always had a rule that he won’t kiss in a film.  He has only broken it once in his most recent Bollywood film for specific purposes.  Compare that to any Hollywood movie on the other hand… even the PG rated ones.  Completely opposite.  India’s society is not perfect and with time it too is worsening (I won’t even talk about western’s current influence on India and how the emerging western culture is in many ways negatively affecting the country) but there are so many people here that follow a standard that is rare to find in the United States, and anywhere in the western world for that matter.  There are people that are sincerely kind and generous, and expect nothing in return.  People who live disciplined lives.  Yesterday I was talking to a Jain nun (see photo).  They are currently in a festival called Paryushana where each day for 8-10 days they discipline themselves in something.  They fast during the whole 8-10 days and practice different disciplines such as silence all day or refraining from anger, etc.  I asked the nun how she does it.  I mean… it is not easy to discipline yourself!  Especially on things that are so carnal and so strong.  She told me that what you must do is not listen to yourself.  Wait… people have always told me ‘listen to your heart’.  Now this Jain nun is telling me not to!  She said ‘whatever your heart desires, don’t do it.  If you feel like sitting, don’t sit.  If you feel like eating a lot, only eat a little.  Don’t give in to your body.  By doing this you become strong and you become free.’  Hmmm… interesting right?  Guys.  There are people that actually do this.  They actively and consciously control themselves and their lives and learn how to treat people correctly.  It doesn’t just come for them, they actually work at it and transform themselves.  Cultures like this still exist!! 

Now, that brings me to the last movie I wanted to talk about.  ‘V for Vendetta’.  Ok, not a documentary, I know.  But so good.  I had seen it before but totally forgot.  There are so many controversial things you can take from that movie, and you can also interpret it in many ways, but there is one specific thing I want to talk about.  After the movie we had a little debate between the 3 of us on whether it was right or not for V to torture Evey without her consent and without her knowing in order for him to teach her a lesson.  There are two quotes he says that I really like. “Artists use lies in order to tell the truth”, and “There is no certainty—only opportunity”.

I used to think that anything at all helps.  Any type of humanitarian aid, any type of service.  Then I started studying development work and I learned that there are not only good ways and better ways to help others, but there are also some ways that appear good but actually hinder a person or a community from progressing.  For example, supporting pan-handling.  Yes, there are those few instances where the person really is just asking one time and the amount of money given is used for something important and a person is really helped out in that moment.  But all too often, pan-handlers earn their livings on the streets, and continue on the streets.  They don’t progress.  Usually, progressive homeless shelters are better places for them to go in order to get out of their situation rather than just receiving aid from people every day and using it every day to only buy the necessities for that day.  If people stopped supporting pan-handling, it wouldn’t exist.  The homeless would have to find other ways to support themselves and would hopefully turn to other options of progression rather than staying on the streets.  This is just an example and of course is not always true… I think following the spirit in each situation with pan-handlers is important so we are able to know whether or not our dollar is going to help that person progress or support them staying on the streets in the same place forever. 

ANYWAY, my point is, that there are SOO many options for us to help out in the world, and make it a better place.  But we also have to be careful with what we choose to do, because sometimes we can think that we are helping when we really aren’t.  Well how do we know??  Studying and researching and observing are all of course important.  We should carefully weigh out our decisions and think them through beforehand.  But at the same time, we are not going to be perfect.  What even is perfection??  No one is perfect.  I don’t believe that people are so black and white… either good or bad.  We are all both good and bad.  We are human yet we are divine.  We have good intentions often and sometimes not-so-good intentions that we usually try to overcome.  Sometimes our actions show our goodness and sometimes they show our carnality.  So here is what I have concluded.  After realizing that there are SO many ways to help and so many things to do, I became overwhelmed and honestly kind of just gave on the idea of doing anything.  Why?  Because I wanted to make sure that all of my efforts were worthwhile and that I was doing the best possible thing I could do.  But how was I ever to know?  There is always so much more we can learn, how can we possibly know if what we are doing is the very best thing we can do?  On my mission, this is what I learned.  We do the best we know how, we consult with the Lord, we trust in Him, and we act.   I became so overwhelmed and lost hope so much that I decided to kind of just give up on it.  I became discouraged.  I thought “anything I do to try and better humanity will just be outdone by someone else anyway and won’t really make a difference”.  But the truth is, if I have the best of intentions, if I research and try to do things the best way I know how, and if I consult with the Lord, my efforts will never be wasted.  There were so many times on my mission where I wondered if I was doing things right.  Times when some people told me to do one thing but others said to do another, and my companion and I would feel that we should do something different.  So what we did was the best thing we knew how to do.  I came home from my mission knowing that I was not perfect, but I did the best I knew how with the abilities that I had.  Now, with our culture and world just spiraling into a state of being totally out of control, we have a duty.  Because we are aware that there are issues, and we are not happy with them.  We may not know the best solution.  In fact, we don’t know it!  As John Legend says “everybody knows that nobody really knows just how to make it work” (ok ok so he may be talking about a relationship, but I think this applies to everything).  We are all just perfectly imperfect human beings as I like to say, trying to do things the way we know best.  In V for Vendetta, was it fair what V does to Evey?  Was it moral?  Was it humane?  No… probably not any of these things.  Did it teach her a lesson?  Did it change her?  Yes it did.  Artists use lies to tell the truth.  But what would have happened if it wouldn’t have worked?  Well, that was a possibility.  V didn’t know if it would have worked or not.  But the truth is, there is never certainty… only opportunities.  There are opportunities all around us.  We don’t know if they will work, but we will never know if we don’t try.  We don’t know if it is the best thing we can do, but at least it is something.  Now, that doesn’t mean just go along blindly doing whatever whenever.  We can be smart.  But we certainly can’t judge, because we don’t know peoples’ backgrounds.  An abusive mother perhaps knows no other way of raising a child, because that’s all she knew herself as a child.  Does that mean an abusive lifestyle is best for the child?  Absolutely not.  But that also doesn’t mean we should judge the mother for not knowing very well how to raise her child or not doing a perfect job at it.  We need to give people the benefit of the doubt.  And the child may resent his mother his whole life, but the truth is, we can’t redo the past.  All we can do is take the opportunities to do the best we know how and hope that things turn out for the best.  If we trust in the Lord and strive to follow Him, then things will turn out for the best.  That doesn’t mean we won’t make mistakes.  We have to make mistakes.  Those mistakes are not only beneficiary to us in our growth, but they often lead us to where we need to be in just the way we needed to be lead. 

So, those are my thoughts.  I have been thinking a lot about all of these things, and feel like I have been learning a lot about myself and my role in the world.  I am capable just as anyone else.  I am powerful and can make a difference in the world for the better.  That doesn’t mean change an entire nation.  It means being an example and a light for individuals.  That is, after-all, how something is truly changed.  A real change is deep-rooted and takes place in the details.  A nation will only change if each individual changes, and it happens one by one.

I think I have decided what exactly I want to do with my life.  I have been thinking and praying and fasting, and I’m feeling good.  Some good and exciting things will be happening in the future… :)

If you made it this far, congratulations and thanks for reading all of my ranting about life and the world and everything else, hah.  I promise all of my blog posts won’t be novels.  It’s just nice to have somewhere I can somewhat organize my thoughts since they are usually all over the place in my head. :) Mmmmk until next time.... Peace outtttttttt!