Witty Title

I should be reading. Always something left to read. The world around me is completely inauthentic. Not really, well just a little. More importantly, is that I am living an inauthentic life for some reason. I just can't get out of it.


I remeber one time, I went to the low country. Down to the poor parts near the coast, where they still speak a creole kind of gullah. It is a poetry of sorts, just to listen to them speak. Because they are an insular type, I hate the ubiqiutous they. The people who live in that region are wary of strangers, especially tourists. I don't blame them. Most people point and take photos like they are at some kind of living history or a zoo. I decided I wanted to get close to these people. I took my camera and printed up some made up creditials. I told them I was from National Geographic and I was a photojournalist. I was doing a story about coastal US cultures. That worked well. I told them I was there to find out about their culture and their history, how and why they do things. It was fun. They were accepting of me.

I think that is part of the problem. Some people think hoping right in the middle of another culture is some sort of novelty experience. To be the token, if you will. That isn't the way at all. There is no respect in that. There isn't an ethics. But to learn, to experience as one might, from and through the eyes of another, while maintaining that respect, never making a mockery of it. I don't think people realise that very often. When you jokingly become that strange token bystander you are making a mockery of people. You are invading their life, their culture, their dreams as though you are some god-like deity that can just drop in. Have a good time, laugh it off later.

I know exactly why this bothers me, but I shan't go into it futher.