Somerset and I

As with others of my generation I found an uncomfortable tension growing between myself, my parents, and siblings as I matured and found my place in the world. It started to build after army basic training when I was 18. This was the first time I had left home for any significant time and the first time I had the experience of rubbing shoulders with people from other religions, cultures and races. The tension accelerated as I attended college and was exposed to new ideas and experiences. The expanded horizons offered by college increased the barrier and it continued to grow through the years of my professional activity and maturation.

I was recruited upon college graduation by a large multinational corporation which required residency in states hundreds of miles from my home town. As part of my assignments I traveled extensively in the US. My job gave me the opportunity to work with well educated people from different cultures and races. This was a very stimulating experience and I found that many of the prejudicial beliefs I had grown up with were false and unfounded.

As a result of university educations and exposure to the ideas and beliefs of other cultures forced on my generation by the Cold War many of us became aliens to our home cultures and in some cases live in two very different realities side by side.

For me the result of these monumental life changes continued to grow and the distance between me and my family became monumental. When visiting and communicating with family members my efforts to work around this only made it more obvious and stronger. It was like pruning trees and shrubs which being cut back grew larger and faster. It seemed as though a mischievous kachina spirit was present during our conversations working hard to create more and more misunderstanding almost as if we were speaking entirely different languages. Notwithstanding our familial love, we were like strangers when together; there was little we could look at from the same point of view.

Mother and Dad lived their entire lives in quite a narrow state of being. They were ill-educated as were most of their contemporaries. They had just enough knowledge to render them dogmatic and intolerant. I found through my own efforts to seek enlightenment that it requires a good deal of study and searching to discover one’s own intolerance, but my parents never saw the need to seek knowledge and wisdom for themselves or their children. It just never occurred to them. They felt they knew as much as was necessary, and on the most debatable questions were most assured, a kind of ignorant arrogance. They had the best intentions of doing their duty, but their duty was dictated by church leaders who they followed with unequivocal trust. My parents seemed to walk around in a narrow circle, hemmed in by unreasonable ideals and unsubstantiated prejudices. The love of God was used as an excuse by the
church for putting unnecessary obstacles in their members way. It was firmly held that the church way was the only way. Other paths led to sin and damnation. As a result folks like my parents never had the opportunity to work out an idea for themselves, but invariably acted and thought according to the rule of their religion and culture.

When I went out into the world, I came to realize that I the things I had been taught were based primarily on myths that could not survive serious questioning. I found my informal education; religious and cultural training was often faulty and unreliable and failed the test of objectivity. However I also discovered in myself a wonderful curiosity, an eagerness for adventure and learning which helped me confront perils and learn rewarding things about other cultures, ideas, and people. I also found that the unknown lands of the intellect are every bit as fascinating as those of sober fact. I read omnivorously, saw many and varied things; the universe was spread out before me like an enthralling play. The knowledge I gained was like the roots of a tree, attaching me to the life around me. I found new beautiful things, new interests, and new complexities; and gained a lighter heart and above all, a sense of freedom. At length I began to look back with some regret at my past life in which the fetters of ignorance had weighed so terribly upon me.

On my visits home during my professional life, I found my people as I had left them, doing the same things, repeating at every well known juncture, and the same trite observations. Their naïveté affected me as if I were a Navajo civilized and educated by white men returning to the reservation after many years and finding he didn’t belong in the white mans world or that of his ancestors. I was astounded that my people ignored matters which I fancied as common knowledge, and at the same time accepted beliefs that I had thought completely dead. I was willing to shrug my shoulders and humor their prejudices, but they had made them a rule of life which governed every action with an iron tyranny. It was in accordance with all these outworn conventions that they conducted the daily round. Presently I found that my father, mother, and siblings were striving to draw me back into their prison. Unconsciously, even with the greatest tenderness, they sought to place upon my neck again that irksome yoke which I had worked so hard to cast off.

If I learned anything, it was at all hazards to think for myself, accepting nothing on authority, questioning, doubting; it was to look upon life with a critical eye, trying to understand it, and to receive no ready-made explanations. Above all, I had learnt that every question has two sides. This was precisely what my family and culture could never acknowledge; for them one view was certainly right, and the other was certainly wrong. There was no middle ground, to doubt that what they believed could only be ascribed to complete folly or to wickedness. Some times I was thrown into despair by the complacency with which my father and mother were dogmatized. No man could have been more unassuming than my
father and yet on just the points which were most uncertain his attitude was almost inconceivability arrogant.

I was horrified at the pettiness and prejudice I found in my home town. Most people read few if any books, (the books they did read were written by or edited by church leaders). Most thought it a waste of time to read. Their minds had sunk into such a narrow sluggishness that they could interest themselves only in trivialities. Their thoughts were occupied with their neighbors and the humdrum details of life about them. They flattered themselves on their ideals and their high principles, while they vegetated into ignorant bliss. Every topic of conversation above the most commonplace they found dull or incomprehensible. I learned that I had to talk to them almost as if they were children, and the tedium of this was intolerable. Occasionally I became so exasperated that I would not avoid discussions which family members forced upon me. Some unhappy, baneful power seemed to drive them to widen the rift, the existence of which caused me exquisite pain; in particular my fathers’ natural kindness was obscured by his obvious irritation with me.

At times I have imagined that when my mother and father were alone they would try to understand why I had drifted so far away from their little world. They probably believed if they would trust in God and pray that things would work out and I would move their way. My father would say, “Sometimes I think he is not our boy at all”. He doesn’t like to do what we do. Why doesn’t he want to work for the benefit of the family following in my footsteps?

Idea provided by Works of W. Somerset Maugham, Nook Book Page 270


Somerset, GDF:121213

Too Many Things are Illegal

Many Americans do not understand what a true democracy with liberty and justice for all means. We are constantly trying to pass legislation that tries to force certain life styles and beliefs on our fellow citizens. This is tyranny. There are many examples of this and we have hundreds of laws dictating behavior. Laws in a Democratic country based on liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all should protect citizens from  infringement on their freedoms and well being by others without dictating personal behavior. A good example of this seems to be our treatment of Marijuana users. If someone smokes pot but are not hurting others and are not infringing on the rights of others that activity should not be criminalized. If however they hurt someone else while under the influence they should be held accountable for their actions.

Today we have thousands of our fellow citizens in prison for using marijuana, not selling it, but using it. The USA has more people in prison than any other country in the world, even more than so-called rogue or "evil" countries. Many of those in prison are there because they were convicted of MJ use. The cost of this incarceration in lives and money is staggering. If MJ was regulated and distributed as liquor is in Utah, the black market for it would be greatly reduced with corresponding reductions in law enforcement problems and expense while increasing revenues in the economy. A great historical example of the folly of the making alcohol illegal was American Prohibition laws of the 1930s. Our situation with MJ is a direct parallel.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune in an article dated December 5, 2013, the legal sales of alcoholic beverages in Utah amounts to $658 million in revenues. The industry provides 3,210 Utah jobs and generates $131 million in taxes. The is according to a study prepared by John Dunham and associates. Think of the possibilities for this money when we can't appropriately fund our schools, health care, and other desirable services.

Millions of Americans use alcohol for a use similar to MJ but with legal sanction. Can we not treat MJ the same way? It seems much of the case against legalizing MJ use comes from a sense of moral judgement. But where is the immorality in MJ use? Where is it condemmend in The Bible, Koran, or Torah? Where is it addressed in the Constitution or Bill of Rights? Just because we don't appreciate the behavior of someone, is it right to make their behavior illegal? Lets decriminalize MJ and free thousands behind bars who have committed no crime against humanity and treat MJ as we do other legal drugs.

Gary Faatz

12/07/13