Learning, Earning/ Burning and Churning
Slowly, each day is another day for me to re-educate myself and look through the attic for some of the forgotten basic survival skills I once knew, life skillls which are peculiar to the region and not practiced by those who are not indigenous members of the culture.
We are not indigenous yet we number in themillions we who have been hired to assist Gulf countriesput into operation indigenization programs.
Mostly, we come to earn not to learn. We don't gross much more for the same work back home. But we net increased earnings by as much as 30%, by not paying taxes, and another 40% - 50% with free or subsidized accommodations. Once we adapt (which is poles apart from learning), once the first year is behind us, we may stay for as long as we are needed. The more we teach, the more the indigenous Khaleejis learn, each year fewer and fewer jobs are filled by strangers. Slowly, -ization takes place.
Acclimatizing your body to the two seasons of pleasant breezes or intolerable summers if you work outdoors but tolerable when we don't and welower the air conditioners and hunker down-- Saif malesh, no sweat.
Acclimating to the working culture requires patience and resilience. It also requires redefining western concepts of what we observe as dodgy thinking and practice "at the art of deception". (J and R)
When we find it necessary to get along—not just getting' by, when we understand that to evade the rules and to sneak around the fluid evolutionary procedures-- "consecrated by time and hallowed by usage" (Coen Brothers), we should not think of our actions as dishonorable or against the natural laws of man. It isn't really sneaking around. Priorities change. Here skewed truths are embedded into instinct and recognized as non-pathological thinking.
I have learned a few tricks. My perceptions must be fine tuned. I have overcome the dread of my own core, subsistence moral values. The unfamiliar plots unfold according to a different formula. Where I come from, we plan our days and our lives in a more simplified composition of behaviors and actions. I'll shorten these to "plot"
Act One: We get to know a few names and quickly determine the characters that are the elements of our lives and stories.
Act Two: We are suddenly (but not unexpectedly) overwhelmed by a complication. We are on a quest. Or we have to solve a mystery. Our sphere of influence becomes distorted. We face challenges in order to find answers, solutions and clarity.
Act Three: We settle back into a design for living that doesn't make it necessary to keep on our toes. Constant vigilance is pathological, and if badly affected by this disease, no problem. See a doctor and get a prescription for something to take the edge of hyper-awareness.
We are like clerics in a sense. We are here to spread the message of modernity. It is not up to us to reconcile this with the locals who have a fight on there hands we have been drawn into but it shouldn't be our fight. The fight should be between those who reject open markets which peddle western immorality like Barbie Dolls and Pokiemon, and those who embrace their faith as a faith of moderation. Unfortunately, a handful of extremely violent traditionalists took the fight to America, hoping that America would respond exactly it did and as they--the tiny percent who have a stronger voice than the majority by virtue of their RPGs and AK-47s, hoped the US would tromp around like a bull in a china shop. Moderation begins to shift when CNN shows collatral damage like the armsless orphan. Back in the US, a majority begins to make noise--it ain't our fight!
Some may call it running away, others might see it as a paper tiger super power without the stomach for a fight to the death. Who the fuck cares how it's perceived. Young men on all sides are dying. Young American men are dying because Dumberer did not have a step 2 beyond step 1--step 1: go to baghdad. Step 2: uh, well, lemme think, maybe we should. . .no that wouldn't work. . .how about we say that we're. . . no we tried that in Vietnam, didn't work. . . think, think. . . I got it, we have come to Iraq to build a country ruled by deomcracy--no, wait, just a sec', democracy anywhere has its demogogues, and a true, hands off democracy may bring to power people who don't like us. Think! Think! What is step two?
Meanwhile--body bags are filled with American teenagers and sent home with papers for coroners reading--extremities missing, head separated from torso, dental records are decisive. Widening the divide between what they need, what we know and what we have to offer. Somewhere in there, I am beginning to understand that they also have a lot to offer.
We are here doing a job which in practice is a job which is supposed to make us redundant.
Once upon a time, we knew that when enough locals learned and some learned well enough to teach, we'd become obsolete. ,.ndigenization is complete.
We are not indigenous yet we number in themillions we who have been hired to assist Gulf countriesput into operation indigenization programs.
Mostly, we come to earn not to learn. We don't gross much more for the same work back home. But we net increased earnings by as much as 30%, by not paying taxes, and another 40% - 50% with free or subsidized accommodations. Once we adapt (which is poles apart from learning), once the first year is behind us, we may stay for as long as we are needed. The more we teach, the more the indigenous Khaleejis learn, each year fewer and fewer jobs are filled by strangers. Slowly, -ization takes place.
Acclimatizing your body to the two seasons of pleasant breezes or intolerable summers if you work outdoors but tolerable when we don't and welower the air conditioners and hunker down-- Saif malesh, no sweat.
Acclimating to the working culture requires patience and resilience. It also requires redefining western concepts of what we observe as dodgy thinking and practice "at the art of deception". (J and R)
When we find it necessary to get along—not just getting' by, when we understand that to evade the rules and to sneak around the fluid evolutionary procedures-- "consecrated by time and hallowed by usage" (Coen Brothers), we should not think of our actions as dishonorable or against the natural laws of man. It isn't really sneaking around. Priorities change. Here skewed truths are embedded into instinct and recognized as non-pathological thinking.
I have learned a few tricks. My perceptions must be fine tuned. I have overcome the dread of my own core, subsistence moral values. The unfamiliar plots unfold according to a different formula. Where I come from, we plan our days and our lives in a more simplified composition of behaviors and actions. I'll shorten these to "plot"
Act One: We get to know a few names and quickly determine the characters that are the elements of our lives and stories.
Act Two: We are suddenly (but not unexpectedly) overwhelmed by a complication. We are on a quest. Or we have to solve a mystery. Our sphere of influence becomes distorted. We face challenges in order to find answers, solutions and clarity.
Act Three: We settle back into a design for living that doesn't make it necessary to keep on our toes. Constant vigilance is pathological, and if badly affected by this disease, no problem. See a doctor and get a prescription for something to take the edge of hyper-awareness.
We are like clerics in a sense. We are here to spread the message of modernity. It is not up to us to reconcile this with the locals who have a fight on there hands we have been drawn into but it shouldn't be our fight. The fight should be between those who reject open markets which peddle western immorality like Barbie Dolls and Pokiemon, and those who embrace their faith as a faith of moderation. Unfortunately, a handful of extremely violent traditionalists took the fight to America, hoping that America would respond exactly it did and as they--the tiny percent who have a stronger voice than the majority by virtue of their RPGs and AK-47s, hoped the US would tromp around like a bull in a china shop. Moderation begins to shift when CNN shows collatral damage like the armsless orphan. Back in the US, a majority begins to make noise--it ain't our fight!
Some may call it running away, others might see it as a paper tiger super power without the stomach for a fight to the death. Who the fuck cares how it's perceived. Young men on all sides are dying. Young American men are dying because Dumberer did not have a step 2 beyond step 1--step 1: go to baghdad. Step 2: uh, well, lemme think, maybe we should. . .no that wouldn't work. . .how about we say that we're. . . no we tried that in Vietnam, didn't work. . . think, think. . . I got it, we have come to Iraq to build a country ruled by deomcracy--no, wait, just a sec', democracy anywhere has its demogogues, and a true, hands off democracy may bring to power people who don't like us. Think! Think! What is step two?
Meanwhile--body bags are filled with American teenagers and sent home with papers for coroners reading--extremities missing, head separated from torso, dental records are decisive. Widening the divide between what they need, what we know and what we have to offer. Somewhere in there, I am beginning to understand that they also have a lot to offer.
We are here doing a job which in practice is a job which is supposed to make us redundant.
Once upon a time, we knew that when enough locals learned and some learned well enough to teach, we'd become obsolete. ,.ndigenization is complete.
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1 Comments:
How very Australian, his whole concept. The spamming, perhaps, isn't.
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