Ego's Dilemma In The City Of Angels

Two weeks ago, I landed in Orange County. Life has varied its pace on me. In the big picture times seem to fly by while at any given moment they seem to be as stagnated as can be. Better put the quantity of time passing by is ever overshadowed by its poorer quality.

Over the last couple of weeks I have spent considerable time exploring the southwestern parts of this country. Well that is a bit of exaggeration. My sister and brother-in-law here have driven me all over California and also to Vegas. All the trips were fantastic. Being on my first trip to this country, I am learning at lot many more new things, things I would never be able to learn from my books and the internet unless I experienced them first hand. And these have helped me understand my perception of this country better. There are many many good things in this country and many more things I despise.

Throughout my exploration of America, the first impressions have been mixed at best. At the US Immigration customs desk at Toronto the kind of scrutiny I was subjected to made me wonder why I even want to go there in the first place. In frustration I thought to myself, screw this no one in India would ever be allowed to treat me this way. But once you are inside the borders of this country, it is a different scenario altogether. And thats what gets me thinking.

Having grown up in Kuwait, I am no stranger to the life of an outsider. Life was all about boundaries and identity along with a surprising level of what I now realize was racism. It was a time when I roamed the streets in fear of the constant awareness that at any moment things can go terribly wrong because of my foreign identity and its consequence in the eyes of the local authorities. In India as a citizen I could well afford the illusion of having the power to demand my rightful position and receive my due. Here I was in 'my' country and for the first time did not have anxiety/fear on my daily roster. But at the same time born in me were certain reality checks of what my identity meant among my own people. I started to see the difference between what I was entitled to and what I got. Yet the country, and its billions with a misplaced sense of patriotism which presented outside the context of cricket and Pakistan had no meaning, infused in me a sense of home, belonging and wanting.

Then for the past few months I haev been here in the much fabled "western" world and that too in and around the holy grail of "free" society. In America and a slightly lesser extent in Canada, the sense of individual freedom is very high and to an extent difficult to define, this freedom is actually experienced. So amongst the three different regions of the world that I have lived in I can actually say that on the face of it, North America has given me what might be the closest experience to the impossible unitary utopia.

Unitary Utopia is a phrase I think I just coined in the last sentence. What I mean by that is utopia experienced in senses limited and applicable only to an individual. I have seen that individual well being and the sense of self are of paramount importance in these societies and therefore the social instruments ensure the greatest achievable level of self-fulfillment I have seen.

By now it is pretty evident that my trip thus far has been as much about having fun as it has been about a dynamic comparison of things I have experienced so far.

Now, unitary utopia as such works for me too. As long as I don't ask too many questions or think too far in any direction it is as fantastic as can be. But beyond a certain limit to the radii of thought-spheres this unitary utopia reveals itself as a farce. I know the fallacy within it yet it is not easy to dismiss. The impact of self-gratification is way too strong for even the most intellectual minds, so I think I can be forgiven.

I am here in this society with the certain aims and ideas. My professional line requires active social participation with an appreciation of local culture and customs which may eventually find their way into my life. In all of this I find myself asking the question as to why I am even here. To train to be a better physician I often answer but deep within I am not too sure if that is the right answer or atleast the complete answer. My professional betterment (unitary utopia) lies here but my sense of belonging will forever lie in elsewhere. America is good for my id while India better for my superego. The question is which way the ego goes. I fear losing my Self.