In God We Trust: An American Experience

Copyright © 2017 by Ike C. Udeh.

Library of Congress Control Number:           2017912150

ISBN:                   Hardcover                         978-1-5434-4236-6

                            Softcover                           978-1-5434-4235-9

                            eBook                               978-1-5434-4234-2

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Rev. date: 08/04/2017

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CONTENTS

Chapter I:   Tales of Splendor

Chapter II:   A Changing Person

Chapter III:   The Way It Was

Chapter IV:   What the System Has for You

PART TWO

Chapter V:   A World View

Chapter VI:   Limitations

Chapter VII:   Working with the System

Chapter VIII:   The People You Meet

Chapter IX:   The Transformation

Chapter X:   In God We Trust

About the Author

Outlined and composed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, twenty-five to thirty years ago; expanded in San Francisco; and subsequently completed in Silicon Valley, California.

Ike C Udeh

Palo Alto, California

For God,

humanity, and

the mystery of nothing

CHAPTER I

Tales of Splendor

T HE TRAVELER COULD hear the clamor. He could hear the name and the words that tell of a place so beautiful, yet so structured and maddeningly driven that some could even feel the resplendence, so palpable and real that its very mention seems to beckon and invite anyone to its shores. He could sense its greatness, its distinction, and its pluralistic communities, which accommodate every being and every soul from all the corners of the earth. The traveler could sense all this from all the tales, told by various people around the globe and filtered through every peephole or cave a million miles away.

He even wonders if what he hears is real but doesn’t exactly doubt or outright entertain the validity of the tales he’s heard from those who have been there. But he could grasp the insistence that typifies the statement of those who had been there as they claim that what they say is true. These words, from those with firsthand experience, seem to make anyone hunger for a taste of what he or she has heard about this exceptionally different place of human dwelling.

It is such that as you go from place to place, the story takes its form, often augmented by the teller’s own perception and some personal experience that could detract or embellish, depending on what predominant factors play as antecedents in the teller’s experience.

Could this be America? And what some people hear from a million miles away sways their inclinations and shifts their minds toward a different kind of thought process. Gradually, they begin to buy into most of what they’ve heard, and a quiet yearning for what they think could be a wonderful experience begins to build in their minds.

It appears these tales about this rather otherworldly kind of place called America often have very strong influences on any culture they touch, and in most countries, the host culture begins to suffer. In time, the very basic fabrics that form the fundamental structure of the culture begin to weaken as the citizens gradually adjust their perceptions of their own culture to accommodate what they now feel is a better culture. As this process continues, the guardians of the host culture take steps to protect their own and insulate it from what they may consider contamination by an alien culture. In some countries, carefully crafted elements of protection are legislated into the system and what are considered protective restraints are planned into place. Some would even go as far as having neighbors spy on neighbors and encourage them to report any instance of a wavering mind who might be inclined to dream of this distant place, this community, the Land of Freedom in which everyone is supposedly equal and everyone can achieve his fullest potential.

In spite of such gallant efforts, however, the people yearn and dream. They plan and search for ways to beat the system and go for their dreams. Even the culture itself appears to bend of its own accord to the whims of the invading American culture.

And the traveler has often heard it said that in whichever society you dwell, you could sense the evident clash of principles, practices, and the trend of individual predilections. You could see the obvious strength of each culture, the American and the domestic. But you can sense the beginning of a sad requiem, which presages the demise of the domestic culture. But as an individual who’s lived all his life in a particular place, you have a definite stake in whatever goes on in your society. You feel you are a part of the community and you are aware of the mental and physical investments you’ve made in the principles of your culture; and as such, the invasion by this supposedly better American culture begins to threaten your otherwise reasoned perspectives on life and society. And from his perspective, the traveler feels that everyone has an attachment to the culture in which he was born.

You probably saw the wholesomeness of your culture and experienced its nurturing concept. You appreciated the benefits that lay in its goodness, and since that was the only culture you knew so well, you probably developed a strong adherence to its principles and felt strongly about the necessity for every citizen to uphold these principles. For some, this feeling of cultural and social responsibility becomes a very necessary obligation sustained by strong emotions. There may not be anything really wrong with this mind-set, except in cases when its application to common everyday occurrences becomes such a must-do undertaking that it begins to override the need for a reasoned approach to social/cultural demands.

In most cultures, there are those people who accept without critical analysis every word or gospel their culture preaches. For such people, there is a blind adherence to the principles of the culture, and this is often couched on a mind-set of total acceptance and subservient submission to the demands of the culture. Incidentally, some of these demands are perceived demands created by the individual to lend justification to his narrowly defined criteria for being an honest citizen, one whose patriotic stance on matters of state and country entertains no room for debate. It is often such people who have a very difficult time when confronted with the prospects of seeing the shift in their own culture as an alien culture invades their community.

But for most people, in time, as an alien culture, albeit one that toots its horn so loudly, continues to invade their community, they begin to question some of the previously accepted principles of their own culture. They gradually find themselves at odds with the fundamental basis of their own beliefs. Their otherwise firmly grounded position within their environment beings to seem precarious. Some of their social inclinations, previously wholeheartedly accepted, find them at a crossroads. They feel there is no in- between, no room broad enough to mentally accommodate what has been inculcated in them and what they now face.

In their quandary, however, these people still feel a certain sense of ownership about their culture since, apparently, this residual emotion and sense of belonging leave them with a feeling of pride. It also sustains their mental state as a bold affirmation of their person.

Invariably, in time, the reassessment of the culture and what it stood for by the individual proceeds faster than he expected, because this thing about this alien culture, which is supposedly perfect, has a very strong pull on him and most of the people around him. Perhaps the individual does not exactly dismiss his culture totally, but he now yearns for another one, which he is encouraged to believe is better. This person is, at this point, emerging from the crossroads at which he found himself at the initial stages; and working through personal reassessments, he begins to seek comfortable grounds from which he could launch his plans and decide which way to go.

As it often happens, the forces of the invading culture get increasingly stronger and the impact on the individual’s mental disposition gets stronger as well. It is worth noting that this could be you within your society; this is you within the familiar confines of your own culture, and this is you struggling with critical decisions, which could effectively change your life. You may wonder then how much of an emotional struggle awaits you when you finally decide to relocate and leave all that you’ve known behind. When you do relocate to America, it may not be simply the familiarity of your previous culture that you leave behind but also the comfort, the safety, and the accommodating environment, which felt nurturing and nonthreatening to your existence.

For some, a decision to leave their place of birth and relocate in a foreign land seems to come relatively easy and any doubts and fear of the unknown are mediated by the excitement and exuberance generated by the belief in the apparent abundance of possibilities there are in the foreign place in which they’ve decided to relocate. For these, the pull from the stories they’ve heard about this foreign place is total and their belief in everything they heard is absolute. Of course, in some cases, the decision to pack up and relocate is encouraged by difficult conditions, which made life miserable in their own country.

Even among this set of easy converts, there are those who find themselves in dire situations after they relocate. From the moment they arrive in America, they are greeted by the glitter, the seemingly excessive luminance, and the maddening ubiquity of flashing lights from a million neon signs, which vie for saliency as they push the various items posted for public consumption. They notice the unending rush and jostling as masses of humanity compete for space and fight for opportunity. For these new arrivals in America, the scene becomes threatening, intolerant, and rather hostile. They begin to wonder why they chose to relocate in the first place.

Some among these new arrivals actually pack up and head back to where they came from. Some can’t bear the thought of having to explain to their folks why they decided to return home, so they try to stick it out. You may not be among this group of settlers who decide to pack up and go back home, but as a new arrival, this rather nascent experience becomes one of several that presage the difficulties that lay ahead. Along with the pleasures, successes and, possibly, riches, which may come your way, there could be various issues, personal and social, you have to deal with.

It is fair to say that among these various issues, some difficult and some not terribly demanding, lie instances of opportunity that, seized in time, could pave the way for ultimate success.

As you begin to wade into the demands of everyday living in America, you find yourself seeking solutions to a multitude of questions seemingly without answers. You begin to realize what the culture entails as the inner workings are revealed. Before you arrived in America, most of the tales you heard often painted a beautiful picture of a scene with no blemishes, at least not like the culture you lived in or any other place. But as you begin to settle in whatever neighborhood you’ve chosen to live in, the reality of life as it is lived in American society begins to awaken your sense of caution and a tempered feeling of excitement. And, yes, there is still some excitement and a feeling of joy. After all, this is America. This is the seat of human freedom unlike any other place. But this feeling of joy and excitement is tempered by a restrained sense of appreciation, as some aspects of the culture in their practical applications appear to contradict the intended meaning of the basic letters in the stated definition of freedom.

In comparison with your mind-set before you decided to relocate, your thoughts are now plagued by a rather different perspective. The picture is taking a very different form, and you are faced with various issues—some of them disconcerting at best and maddeningly conflicting at worse. They conflict with what you knew and accepted as primary determinants of an amicable coexistence among humans in a human society. As you go about your business and try to fit into your new community, you may find that some of the issues, mostly social, which you have to deal with, seem to be beyond the readily available processes of simple resolution. But you are now in America, and you have decided to stay; and this decision to stick it out in the face of irresolvable issues awakens the need for a reassessment of self, safety, and success. In this process of reassessment, you realize that you, your being, and the very essence of your personhood now need a newer and perhaps reconsidered articulation to help you settle in your new society.

As a transplant in America, one of the things you learn early is that it is a society on a fast track—a very fast track that always reminds you that the society does not wait for anyone. With this knowledge, you seek to find your cue and march along with everyone else. As for the difficult social issues and the rather differently strange cultural factors, you try to categorize them and subsequently place them in a compartmentalized set of factors worthy of temporary suspension.

And so, you begin to feel a sense of mixed emotions. You watch, either in dismay or excitement, as your mind begins to grapple with what appears to be a resolution to some of the questions plaguing your thoughts. And with this sense of resolution, you begin to feel like you are approaching a definite stance as you begin to find the room for the accommodation and acceptance of your new society, perhaps not exactly for its less convincing aspects but for the sheer attraction of its novelty and promises.

As you seek to accommodate these initial issues and begin to settle mentally, there is a latent feeling of safety and some personal comfort. Because such a feeling of safety helped to ground and anchor your being in your previous society, you are naturally inclined to accept and want more of those factors, which make your new society work.

So as you toil and seek to find your path in this frenzied track of human race for survival, you play it deftly—you work with the dictates of the culture for survival—but you still hold on to some of the principles of the old culture for mental soundness, at least until you feel sufficiently safe and settled in the new society. Ultimately, you feel satisfied that there was no intent, you do not question the authenticity of the culture you left behind; you did not dismiss its validity or trivialize the benefits, which lay in its applicability within its own confines. And incidentally, a latent sense of nostalgia inexorably elevates these benefits, perhaps a notch beyond their worth, but worthy nonetheless.

But as you begin to find your niche in your newly adopted American society, you begin to discard some of the previously held views of your old culture. The longer you remain in America, the more you find reason for that aspect of the system you initially felt was unreasonable; and you find accommodation for that which you considered unacceptable. Your mind-set begins to find you at a point of convergence at which the old finds the new, and invariably, something begins to give. The play and promise of the American culture, including the tantalizing presence of its seductive abundance, becomes stridently attractive. Perhaps the unexpected advantage here is that what you regarded in and about your old culture as an instance of universal acceptance becomes exposed only as good but essentially particular and not necessarily universally acceptable.

In substance, you’d lived your old culture all along by viewing the particular as universal and unquestionably beneficial to all humankind.

As a transplant in America, your next dilemma then may be precisely how not to jump on the bandwagon and join everyone else in putting down other cultures as no good and totally unfit for human existence. Some views even go so far as to define most other societies as primitive. But this should not be an issue for you since you will soon learn that everything other than American almost always gets more than one definition. And at times, these other instances or occasions get such a plethora of definitions that you are inclined only to opt for a more balanced approach; you view it all in perspective and place them in their proper context; ultimately, they play like any other human instance with merits and demerits, which, in the end, tells you it’s all good!

Since every human culture has its ups and downs, that by definition includes the American culture. And similar to other human cultures, the American also has its downside. At this point, as a transplant, perhaps you could argue about which aspect outweighs the other. A cursory look into some of the advances, both in medicine and technology, leaves no doubt about the culture’s advancement and greatness. In some aspects, particularly science, it’s simply amazing. In the field of medicine, some of the work is almost impossible to grasp, and of course, that too happens to be one of the more appealing factors that piqued your curiosity and encouraged you to relocate.

Of course, in spite of it all, in spite of the almost magic of science and medicine and every other great idea, people still die. Oh yes, like in every other human society, people die here too. And like every other human society, death does unearth some of humanity’s rather unsavory inclinations. Here, in America, it is no different. Witness the rush with which the bereaved go for