Says Dad:
The man who eats his bread with pickle looks at the man eating meat and thinks, "I should be eating meat, too."
The man eating meat cleans his plate and wipes his whiskers and thinks, "I should not have eaten so much meat. Now I have indigestion."
We were on our way back from dropping off a man, who just arrived in the country a week ago, at his new job. He is a doctor of homeopathic who will now be slaving away at a truck stop in rural Texas. Because he wants to feed his three-month old child. Whom he left behind in India.
And it was a continuation, of sorts, of a conversation I started last night, at my mom's best friend's house. The guy from today was there, too, and my "aunt" was telling me about another guy, an MD, who has been moonlighting at a motel on the weekends for $6.50 an hour until he waits to get sorted out. $6.50/hr. That's a fucking insult. Why doesn't the guy take a frickin day off instead of working for a pittance?
I have to say, I still don't agree with the "immigrant work ethic." People sacrifice their lives, their health, and any time they might spend with their families, and for what? They rationalize it by saying they are building property for their kids, but in my case, at least, I wish my parents had spent less time at work "building property" (read: debt) "for me" and more time playing with me. I can build my own damn property if I want it so bad.
The dr, the MD who works at the motel, he just got married last weekend. My "aunt" says he needed all the cash he could get for wedding expenses. My question is, if the guy is really so poor, why did he need to have a big, catered event? All you need for a wedding is two willing people and a third to read the appropriate scriptures. But no--he had to maintian appearances. Let's be frank. He's killing himself to maintain appearances--am I supposed to admire that? I don't. I opposite that.
They're not buying McMansions and Lexus suv's "for their kids." They're doing it to keep up with the Joneses, I mean the Kumars.
2) I can understand where you're coming from. My dad slaves away and seems very unhappy, and he doesn't need to be. I'm like dad why don't you just get a cabin in the woods, fish, and write your book (that's what he wants to do). He just responds, I'm doing it for you children. I tell him I don't need it, I'm fine, but he won't accept that. I think part of it is he's a workaholic (everybody is some type of "aholic"). Then I think of my grandparents who slaved away to give my parents the opportunities to work hard and give us lots of stuff. At what point does it stop? At what point as humans do we say, I have enough, now let's be happy and enjoy it. I know my parents are certainly there, but they fail to realize they've reached their goal. This is why I say progress for progress sake is necessarily a good thing.
3) I'm not sure if you were getting to this theme, but you're post made me think of it. My old roommate moved to America from Uzbekistan with a Masters in Electrical Engineering. His degree is worthless here. He's a pizza delivery guy, but living and eventually bringing his family to America is more important than working as an engineer (he could just stay in Uzbek, his parents own an engineering company there). I have to say I admire him though even if outwardly it appears stupid.
Conclusion: sometimes life is about having a goal and achieving that goal no matter what. Maybe that's all life is really about. It may sound better if you call it a dream, 'cause really, what would we be without our dreams?