On Humanity

By Dustin Stitt

 

            The only certainties in life are death and change. It’s the first lesson of the traveler, often discovered as they break away from their home and culture for the first time. For many, it can be a conflicting journey. Discovering that there are untold numbers of people in the world who have unfamiliar beliefs which they hold in as fervorous a faith…. suffice it to say that we begin to question what we once held absolute. There are few in the world who experience a complete cultural submersion, and unfortunately, I cannot yet count myself among them. I’ve never fully learned a foreign language, or used foreign currency without pausing to double and triple check my math before passing over the coins or bills. What I have done, though, is learn to love men who I once hated without true cause. I’ve learned to celebrate (and even cling to) cultural differences. Perhaps most powerful of all is the fact that I’ve learned to give up a faith that was founded on fear, and instead seek universal truths from any body of knowledge.

            I think, therefore, I am.

Believe it or not, that’s progress. Admitting that we don’t really know much about the world we live in is the first step in battling our own ignorance. Indeed, for the vast majority (particularly in the conservative south), our own families and small-town churches are the only cultures we ever experience. It begs the question: what if, instead of a number of divided communities, America could become a true melting pot? What if people were open to learning from other cultures? How would it affect our perceptions of the world, and what changes would occur in our interactions with humanity? Based on my own experiences in the Horn of Africa and Central America, I can (at least in part) answer the question.

Having been raised as something of a Puritan and a Separatist under the Pentecostal faith, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself in the Horn of Africa with tears in my eyes as I observed one of the most beautiful aspects of human culture that I’ve ever seen: the Muslim call to prayer. Five times per day and without fail, the call to prayer would sound and everyone (regardless of social class or vocation) would stop what they were doing to honor their God. Later, I would further witness their religious commitment when, during Ramadan, they gave up all daytime sustenance for an entire month. Despite desert temperatures upwards of 120 degrees Fahrenheit, most denied themselves even water. And was it because they were violent extremists committed to Jihad against the West? Upon my arrival in Africa, each Muslim I encountered was a threat – a suicide bomber or an airplane hijacker.  By the time I left six months later, each was a family member who I could learn from. I might not have agreed with their beliefs, but I understood why they had them, and I damn well respected them. That was the first step in a long journey –  realizing I respected an opposing view.

Having established a level of respect for an unfamiliar culture, my natural reaction was to begin to question everything. I questioned my own childhood and faith, and ultimately, adopted a learning mentality. No longer was I a missionary of truth and light, but rather a silent observer. When a person realizes that they don’t have all the answers, they become far less standoffish, and more open to the lessons they can learn from people they don’t understand. One of the main questions I asked myself was, “Why do these people believe the things that they do?” The question didn’t pertain exclusively to religion, either. In fact, having established for myself that truths can be found in many places, religion was no longer a divisive wall between us, and was thusly irrelevant. I asked why one tribe hated another, or why a village believed they were cursed. The Afar hated the Somalis because the ruling tribe had long neglected them. The village wasn’t really cursed, they were just drinking from a tainted water supply. After a while, I learned not only to help others solve their problems, but also a far more valuable trait. Compassion.

I would argue that compassion is the single most important attribute a person can have. If you care about someone, you begin to put yourself in their shoes. Not only does it help you to learn about yourself, you also begin to truly desire to understand others on a deeper level. It makes you want to connect to peoples’ languages and belief systems. You become cautious toward any immediately negative cultural reactions. You eat the balut. You pay the poor kid in Guatemala for the tamales that you know will make you sick. You learn to communicate not only using language, but via the collective human spirit, and in doing so, you learn that language can only take a person so far. You begin to appreciate the subtleties of a system of communication that has long been forgotten in our modern world.

Intuition. Discernment. Awareness. Empathy.

You could call it one hundred different names, but they all ultimately mean the same thing. Once a person becomes aware of their role as only a small part of the greater human collective, they learn to pay attention to their instincts and listen to their gut. Six years ago, I was a dumbass kid who was beginning a journey I couldn’t possibly understand. Since then, I’ve spent time in four different countries which utilized eight separate languages. I’ve lived with Muslims, fostered children from Laos, joined a fraternity of Filipinos, and stumbled through the basics of language and culture in Central America. Ultimately, what I learned by looking through another’s eyes, is how badly I needed to open my own.

What can I learn even here, in East Tennessee? From the Arab immigrant, or the African-American, or the Asian-American? What can I learn from the homeless man, or the PHD lecturing at my community college? From the woman who is paid less than I am to do the same job with the same qualifications? What problems do each of these groups face that make them believe the things they do? Have I contributed to these problems? Can I help fix them? Before long, the people I connect to will learn to ask the same questions, and eventually, together, we can correct the cultural misconceptions that only serve to divide us. Ultimately, we’ll be able to teach others the importance of seeing through another’s eyes, and make America into the true melting pot that it was always meant to be.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

Raised in a broken home, I learned to adapt to a plethora of social situations. In one household, discipline was the most important element in my upbringing. In the other, I faced the difficulties associated with having a parent struggle with alcoholism and depression.

In my youth, I found solace in literature and writing, and I’m now attempting to use those tools to help others find the same. I recently published a poetry anthology for charity, and am now working on a memoir titled, “Depravity – a Memoir.” The book will chronicle not only the cultural experiences I gained while serving in the military intelligence community, but also my own struggles with depression, religion, loss of loved ones, and various other experiences that most people will have to navigate at some point in their lives. My hope is to contribute in a small way to the enlightenment that I perceive as beginning in my generation. I hope to help broken people find peace, and to encourage our nation to be accepting, even of those they can’t understand.

In this submission, I’ve attempted to focus primarily on the positive aspects of cultural submersion, but there is also a darker side. As we discover truths in other cultures, we can begin to spot flaws in our own. Sometimes, we feel helpless to fix them. Ultimately, these concepts and more will be explored in my future work, but I’m happy to discuss any of my experiences and the lessons I learned from them with those seeking a deeper understanding of the world. Trust me when I say that I can learn as much from you as you will learn from me, and, despite my introversion, I’ve learned to step out of my comfort zone in the journey toward peace and wisdom.

My prayer is that this will reach the people it needs to and inspire them. Don’t let fear control you. In closing, there are still seekers and philosophers in the world; you are not alone. I can summarize no better than Immanuel Kant already did in the Eighteenth Century: “Dare to know.”