2 years in NBO!

 

 

 

 

 

Today is our 2 year anniversary in Nairobi!  For those of you who STILL haven’t made it out here, hurry up… Here are some photos and videos of what we’ve been up to, and, still further below, a book review (sort of).

Road tripping - advance level!

With little cousin Zed

Big Boy's first trip to the hairdressers...

First day of school (note Big Boy's uniform!)

Big Boy joins Elephant Class

Mara, anyone?

 Religion for Atheists

One of the distinct downsides of living in Nairobi, for me at any rate, is the commute I endure to work.  It is, generally, an hour and a quarter each way.  Which statistic is, in and of itself, reasonably sobering. 

But what makes it truly shattering is the parade of the human condition along the way.  On a given day, I could encounter a lame camel taking up an entire lane (noisily and violently berated by his maniacal mahout), an accident which has left a motorbike driver (boda boda – in Swahili) convulsing on the tarmac, blood dripping down his sideburns from under his still-on helmet, or, most infuriatingly, a solid wall of entirely inexplicable traffic.  

Between stimulus and response, it is said, lies freedom.  So it was in an effort to make the most of the commute that I began in earnest to consume audiobooks in the 8 hours a week of time spent in the car (I generally  work from home one day a week).  

It is a testament to the power of the written word that despite the parade of horrors unfolding before me, I am moved to laughing out loud (thanks PG Wodehouse!), or reflectively cradling my chin as I gaze philosophically at an 18-wheeler lying upended in a ditch, its wheels spinning slow and distinct in the haze of the setting sun and woodsmoke (Power of Now).  

I recently read (or, technically, ‘listened to’), ‘Religion for Athiests’, which is, by far the most enjoyable book I have read this year.  Alain de Botton, the author, basically sets out to save the baby (i.e. the consolations and reassurances which religion provides) from being discarded with the bathwater (i.e. the unthinking acceptance of the superstitions and perversions of organized religion).  I couldn’t’ believe that someone out there had been having the same thoughts as I have, and then actually gone ahead and articulated an argument which spoke directly to some of my innermost turmoils.  

While I lack the conviction and, let’s face it, stones, to call myself an atheist (also, the rational side of me cannot conceive of any cosmic upside to ‘outing’ myself like this, in the event there is a God (on which topic, oh supreme deity!, I have no comment at the present), I have struggled for several decades to map my own sense of spirituality onto the complicated menu of pre-existing religious options.

Actually, it is a topic which is largely taboo even within the confines of my own skull, out of a pre-emptive sense of profound disloyalty to my family and the proverbial ummah.  

My argument goes thusly: In questioning my faith, I am inherently joining the ranks of Islamo-illiterates/haters and their enablers (notable example of the laughably mercenary Hirsi Ali, the now-Dutch MP, “author” of “Infidel” – non-astonishingly at all, given the coarsening of public discourse, a NYTimes bestseller), or the more luke-warm likes of people I actually admire partly because of their even-handed approach to public religiosity (contrast Zidane, a self-professed “Non-practising muslim” (and my favorite footballer) with, say, an ibn-Saud or Bernie Madoff (ex-religious chest-thumper extraordinaire).

And so this self-censorship extinguishes any inner-dialogue, which in turn precludes any evolution in my self-knowledge.  This is the cycle in which I have, largely, been trapped since my late teens.  

Happily, it turns out the prison door was unlocked all along.  De botton argues that we are generally far too deferential to the “ownership” claimed by organized religions over various moral and ethical postures.  The basic premises of happy co-existence (e.g. do not kill, do not steal, which in turn beget corollaries like ‘hold the lift even for the a-hole who never takes off his backpack’ (why does a middle-aged guy even wear a backpack to the office?) existed well before religions were codified, and were in fact co-opted by the various founding fathers (and I DO mean fathers) in an attempt at branding and marketing their faiths. 

Examples abound (although de Botton, in the fashion of Western contemporary thinking, avoids any from the annals of Islam, possibly for fear of being pilloried): 

• Maternal love: Nothing is richer, or more universal, than the love of a mother for her child.  Cave-babies ice ages ago felt it before flickering firelight, the lucky among us continue to feel it, and it is the deepest foundation stone of our personalities.  Not a coincidence, therefore, that the motif of the adoring Virgin with her immaculately conceived son is one of the handful of artistic themes officially sanctioned by the Catholic church.  It is nothing more than an attempt to convert a secular form of love into a religious one, and thereby claiming for the Church as a sort of exclusivity, the consolations of this most ancient (and most intimately 'yours') anti-depressant.  If there were an glowing neon advertising slogan outside the church, it could read like this: “Inside, you will be as understood and enfolded in love as you once were by your own mother” (I’m not in the advertising business, but you get the point)

• Public singing: In plundering emotions and rituals for its own private arsenal, organized religion has not limited itself to such profundities as maternal love.  Instead, and in wise recognition of human nature, it has also ‘borrowed’ such pedestrian ceremonies as public singing, which has been found by scientists as a form of deep and almost instant relaxation (recall the last live concert at which you were intimate with the artist’s body of work).  But singing in public, shoulder to shoulder, is now essentially limited (at least in day time and with children) to religious events.  It was, in contrast, and for our forebears, a regular and active way of congregating and communing, without the stress of having beforehand to exchange pleasantries re: the state of the market today etc. 

Anyway, the take-away for me was that none of this pre-ordained, and that everyone is making it up as they go along.  Moreover, most of the positive aspects of religion pre-existed in ‘non-branded’ (Migros) format.  In line with the Hiding Hand Principle (discussed in a previous post), the book was, for me, an exhortation to just get on with it, and not over-think: There is no 'authentic' way to do this, especially as far as passing on spirituality to kids is concerned.  

Indeed, it is impossible to evaluate the entire summation of yourself (or anyone, by consequent) on a transaction-by-transaction basis.  

Is it bad that I didn’t hold the lift for the backpack guy today – yes.  Does it make me a bad person entirely – not really.