Solitude and Internationalism

The Boys and I on Defenders of the Nation Day (Man's Day)

I apologize for not writing much about Kyrgyzstan or Central Asia. Being in one place for a few months it sort of blurs together. Corruption sucks, but I will probably end up assisting to it if it means I can get one of my students into tech school and thus set for employment and hope outside of hauling boxes at the bazaar. Teaching English is rewarding but in a slow way. The weather has lingered between winter and spring for the last two weeks, precluding any interesting trips.

I did have a “play defense for US policy/role in the world” conversation today. It is hard to explain why one always seems to end up on the defense. I think it is just to try and explain what the non-malevolent motivations are behind malevolent looking policies and postures. It is a good exercise because it helps me see other perspectives both when assessing my (or US) behavior and when assessing others. Anyway, one critique that is a little flat on the surface is that the US’s actions are “illegitimate” or “illegal” because under Bush we have acted unilaterally to a large degree. It is a little flat because internationalism is not so well established that one can say there is a set or laws that one must abide. There may be standards or norms but countries go to war, use economic leverage and bargain for their own advantage all the time. The US just looks worse for a couple of reasons 1) we are bigger and thus more effective at these self-interested tactics. 2) Other people, like Americans, expect more morality from the US than from other countries. But the critique is fundamentally correct, if perhaps naïve.
But I think that in the long run it is in the US’ interest to establish and follow through on international constraints on state behavior and encourage proto-international governance. Why? Because the US is almost certain to have less influence proportionally in the future than it does now. Thus we can shape the system that will constrain the action of future powers.

I’ve been thinking a lot about solitude lately. I have sort of an odd relationship with solitude. On the one hand, solitude makes me feel lonely and a little down. Not despairing and (thus not depressed) because I have never experienced the feeling down as though it would be unending. But sometimes I know that I would be overwhelmingly glad to see an friend from pre-Kyrgyzstan. Due to that feeling, I think I have cultivated a premium on friendships. It looks, and is, downright corny on the instances I let out of the bag. I get greater joy now out of all my relationships from it.

The sadness and modest frustrations have become an opportunity for growth. I almost feel the growth from loneliness or minor regrets (a word too many or few in a conversation and other social faux-pas). Once the modest suffering is perceived as constructive and instructive, it becomes very bearable to the point of being pleasureable. One can then focus not on the suffering but on the cause of the suffering and thus on a way to avoid or reduce it in the future.

Little pains and sufferings are a necessary part of life. But by learning from it and not feeling ourselves to be the victims or irredeemably guilty of it, the joys and light moments should out shine the adversities. Solitude and the change of pace that setting into a far-away routine provides amplifies the suffering and forces us to deal with it head on rather than procrastinate. Being with friends is not a coping mechanism but not having the luxury forces one to see the sources of discontent more clearly and resolve them from the inside-out. In the states it often seems that time to ones’ self is fleeting. Letting it linger for a longer term feels almost like a kind of long term meditation in that something which at home is always changing and demanding our attention becomes suspended.

Something can be gleaned from that, I think, which otherwise may remain illusive. I don’t know what it is, but I would liken it to a wilderness experience, time abroad or a really intense talk with an old friend. Somehow, things get a little clearer. It may not always be fun at the time, but one would not trade it for anything because it immediately becomes a part of one’s very composition.