On reading ‘Dreams from My Father’

I picked up this story of Obama's mixed inheritance to read on my flight to India. The longest transit of my life notwithstanding, I only managed to read half the book. That, however, is not the point; I had resolved to read nothing more intense than Calvin and Hobbes and perhaps a Wodehouse or two, just to recover from the trauma of back-to-back reads of first the God of Small Things (yes a decade late) and The Kite Runner. (Don't get me wrong; reading, I love. Human misery and the darker side of life, depicted in excruciating detail, leaves me reeling and yearning for balloons and blossoms) And so, I was half expecting to give up after the first chapter under the weight of the matter and could see myself desperately reaching for an escape- book when I packed this one into my carry-on. But that didn't happen. I am not making any claims as to to the read-worthiness of the book, nor to my skills on reviewing such. But I did feel the irresistible urge to share some (his) words of wisdom, all too familiar, but lost somewhere in the crevices of our memories, with anyone who might chance upon this blog.

In the last weeks leading up to the conclusion of the Democratic primaries, the media was cashing in on every aspect of the protagonists' public, publicly private and privately intimate lives. Not to be left behind, Costco had slashed the prices on 'Dreams...' and 'The Auacity of Hope...' Between his dreams for himself and America, and the dreams handed down to him from his father, I picked the latter. And I'm glad I did. What struck me was the ease and simplicity with which he peeled away the layers of human emotion underlying inexplicable behaviour, his understanding of the veneer of arrogance for what it was; a shroud covering fear and diffidence deep beneath it. But mostly his empathy and above all his honesty were deeply moving. This paragraph in particular hit a nerve somewhere and made me sit up straight as I read through. It hit hard especially because I had just returned from India, with a million thoughts about home, family, the ever-widening gap between between those reaping of the burgeonining economy and those to whom it made the mockery boom louder, flitting in and out of conscious thought; mingling with observations of common courtesy that was indeed quite common to see aboard Caltrain and wondering why it was painfully lacking back home on a similarly sweltering day, on a very similar train. It had captured in a few words the essence of what had happened to the many many faces that we collectively label 'bureaucracy'; it had summarized the resignation that we categorize as indifference, the same indifference that we were ourselves sucked into at one point, I was for sure, and that freshly shocks me everytime I return.

But before I rant on and on, the passage mustn't be lost, and here it is. The context, if you had not guessed already: his observation of the apathy that preachers, aid workers, men and women in public service, and sadly those needing the service themselves, inevitably slip into.
'....The three of them reflected the attitudes of of most of the people who worked in Altgeld: the teachers, drug counselors, policemen. Some wre there only for the paycheck; others sincerely wanted to help. But whatever their motives, they would all at some point confess a common weariness, a weariness that was bone-deep. They had lost whatever confidence they might have once had in their ability to reverse the deterioration they saw all around them. With that loss of confidence came a loss in the capacity for outrage.'

A loss in the capacity for outrage is a great loss indeed. A loss that can strip one of accountability, the accountability for our own complicity in having stood by.

However, as I am prone to, I searched for hope to make a comeback soon and that probably increased, briefly, my average reading rate (which in the last decade has fallen appallingly). And I arrived at this passage. Again, for context: it describes a scene at a public elementary school.
'... As the teacher tried to direct them up the stairs, I thought how happy and trusting they all seemed, that depsite the rocky arrivals many of them had gone through- delivered prematurely, perhaps, or delivered into addiction, most of them already smudged with the ragged air of poverty- the joy they seemed to find in simple locomotion, the curiosity they displayed toward every new face...'

Ah! Isn't that joy the birth right of every infant born into this world? And to keep that smile on every child's face from fading not a worthy cause to strive for? It reminds us of why we are here, why we cannot resign as if it were a day job and what purpose we have been called upon for; It reminded me that there is always hope, when there is a willing spirit.

ps: technically this should have been my second post since the Rising...just for the record.