Wall Ornament, House of Cheung
Born in Asia and becoming an adult in the West I am an amalgamation of East and West. A native of the Philippines has inherent complexity. The Philippines is the cultural mongrel of Asia. His country a Spanish or North American colony for 300 years, Filipinos look Malayo-Polynesian but think and feel like a European or North American. Appearance doesn't quite jibe with what comes out when a Filipino talks about himself or his life. That I've more of my life in the U.S. than in my native land adds patina to the toss. I am an American but not your average American. I belong and not-belong. It's a conundrum that has haunted and inspired me, loaded me with cutting-edge advantage and disadvantage.
For years I've simmered in this poly-cultural stew. I came to America fleeing from a life where I felt I didn't belong. America liberated me intellectually. The mind and the life of the mind was at home here but a new force came into being. If in the Philippines I longed for a bigger sea in which to swim, in America I have that ocean of almost infinite dimensions but curiosity has transmogrified. Now I am even more curious about a visionary divide. I switch spectacles every moment or so, now looking about me as Asian-born, now as West-acculturated. That edge between fascinates me no end.
Edith Hamilton's 1930 book (republished with additional chapters in 1942), The Greek Way, added fuel to my schizoid identity. She has reminded me wherein conflict occurs and the delicious taste of my fence-straddling persona. This is an issue that only now perhaps I have the wherewithal to confront. All my working life I thought someday I would retire and then have the time to read all the books, listen to all the CDs, watch all the DVDs that I've accumulated since coming to consumerist America. I don't consider myself retired today because I can't accept the idea of sitting still and enjoying the leisure. Hamilton pointed out that the word school is akin to the ancient Greek σχολή, which according to Bill Casselman (billcasselman.com), meant "leisure time to use for learning important life insights."
I am not retired; I am in school, closer to the Greek idea than our driven, modern experience of school. Casselman again wrote that for Aristotle, schole or leisure was not do-nothing time. It was the "most useful of times, time you set aside for your learning." He quoted Aristotle who in his Politics wrote: The first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end." How true!
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