Living By Translation

What makes you "you"? Some say that to know ourselves we must get to know people not like us, in order to see our true selves through others. Yet, as we meet new people, our personalities change ever so slightly, through either the new knowledge we've gained or the quirks and quips we've taken on from those we've met. Therefore, we have no one shape or personality, unless we decide to live in a subculture of homophily, a good subject rather timely for the type of propaganda (i.e., advertising) that groups put out to appeal to their kind:

• Theory of Advertising

I promised myself not to get drawn in to the rants and raves, the rhetoric, and the preposterous pontifications of those involved in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Yet, I can't resist because I don't have a vested interest in the outcome of the election, or as my father would say, I don't have a dog in the fight.

Thus, I can research subjects, read books and discuss ideas that are incongruous, go off-topic, and genuinely clash.

Of course, we've all heard about the Presidential candidates -- Barr, Keyes, McCain, McKinney, Nader, Obama, Paul, etc. -- are they Presidential? Really? Honestly, I can't say that any of them particularly appeal to me. However, one of them will become the U.S. President, a figurehead overseeing the world's largest economy, the "leader of the free world," if you will, and serve as a focus for many who want certain ideals to guide the direction the United States will take over the next four years.

In my travels, I have heard international opinions about the role the U.S. has played in the past 10 or 12 years and the role others would like the country to take. Some praise the U.S. for taking a role in rooting out terrorist groups, a role being celebrated today, 9/11, in honor of the thousands who died on 11th Sept 2001. Others blame the country for creating an environment of fear, directly feeding into the mood that terrorists want people living in peaceful countries to feel.

I attended publicly-funded schools from age 6 to 18. During that time, I encountered a variety of personality types. Some people treated classmates in a passive-aggressive manner, some acted as "school yard bullies," some naturally gravitated to leadership roles, some sought no specific group or clique and lived independent lives and some meshed with all social groups, acting neither as leaders nor followers. Needless to say, the world culture reflects the same mix of personality types.

So the easiest way to look at the future of the U.S. is to look at the adult roles people play today with whom I attended public school. In other words, the U.S. just turned 232 years old this year, a mere child in the ways of the world. What will it act like when it grows up?

While the airwaves fill with chitchat, I have decided to investigate the possible futures this country may take by thumbing through a few books I picked up at Unclaimed Baggage recently:

• Living to Tell The Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli
• The Last Days of Socrates by Plato
• Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen J. Langer
• The Great Books Reading and Discussion Program - Fourth Series, Volume One

I had put aside Don Quixote, the last book I got at Unclaimed Baggage, after getting halfway into the second book. I will finish the novel one day, I'm sure, just not today. Cervantes makes me put down pen and paper and stare at the wonders of the world with no desire to write anything.

As I delved into Living to Tell The Tale, I saw reflections of myself and better understood the makings of an imaginative writer like Marquez, who saw the world around him wrapped in mystery. His tales fit with those of Cervantes like two pieces of a Spanish jigsaw puzzle, with just a small section missing. That missing piece of the puzzle hides in the pages of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston's tale of life in Florida, once a bastion of Spanish culture, tells the story of a child of American culture raised in the shadows and heat of the Spanish Caribbean just like Marquez and probably in the same way Cervantes would have, seeing mischievous creatures rising out of the swamps and rivers like gators out of drainage ditches today, dragons of old basking in the sun and rattling human minds.

I don't read books all day. But for the most part, I read. Sometimes I surf the 'Net, looking at news headlines or checking my investment portfolio. I ponder the purposes of every news item -- seeing the journalist, the news editor, the publisher, the headline maker (from politicians to pontiffs to pickpockets), the popup ad, the popup ad designer, the popup ad company's owners, the popup ad product maker/owner, the Web designer, the intended audience for both news item and popup ad -- and see the general storyline that my culture wants to tell.

How easily do we get steered toward entertainment, whether through general news or advertising, that we believe enhances the life we think we lead? A rhetorical question, I know.

That's why I rarely watch television. I find very little on all the local or cable stations that helps me in my daily life. It's as if everything on television is humming a tune to a beat I can't hear with words in a language I can't understand. But somehow I think that the Internet gets around this because I can choose my own channels, so to speak, even though the majority of the Web sites I visit post text in English. Shame on me. I should know better than to let my favorite form of mass communication, text, fool me into thinking I'm thinking for myself with an open mind. I may search for random phrases using general predictive search engines provided by Google or Yahoo but I should know that I'm still looking at a limited world of ideas, specifically those posted onto the World Wide Web in English. How many people out there have found the solutions to problems but I don't have access to them because they speak a non-English language and choose not to use the Internet?

I'm living most of my life by translation, in other words. A friend of mine, Ann P., told me she much rather prefers to read poems and stories in their original language because translations lose the alliteration and true meaning of words and phrases. She likes meeting homeless people on the street because they have a world view unlike hers. I know what she means.

The next U.S. President, no matter where he or she grew up, no matter how much money he or she has, had, or will have, does not live an everyday life close to mine. The candidates seek public office, the highest one in this country, with the sole intention of saying whatever it takes to get votes. I do not. I have no convictions strong enough that I want to live the rest of my days behind the shelter of the Secret Service. However, I thank the candidates for their devotion to this task. They have helped me know what makes me "me":

• I am a leader of men and women who can move about the world making business and personal decisions without an entourage.
• I am a writer, an observer, a satirist, a thinker.

The candidates' public lives help me live my private one. If all of our lives aren't a definition of the dedication to the idea of freedom, then tell me what is.

Seven years ago, 2,993 people died because of their beliefs. Some were dedicated to business, some were dedicated to military service and some were knowingly or unknowingly dedicated to martyrdom. I have learned who I am from all of them, no matter which of the 90 countries they came from. I hope and pray that the next U.S. President will learn from them, too, and work with other countries to make this world more peaceful and prosperous for everyone. The world won't end because of one country's president but the administrators and workers of one U.S. Presidential term can inspire the world to work together. Let's support the next U.S. President, regardless of who he or she is, and not get trapped into believing or feeding each other empty rhetoric.