The Rawness of Human Nature

April 19th, 2008 Posted in Human Nature, India

A huge realization I have is that the way I was raised and things I believe are very different from the beliefs of the people I am interacting with in India. This is quite a complicated subject, so I will only graze the surface in this post.

I was raised in a nice bubble. My mom always did the best to keep me away from the “evils” of society. I guess one of those things would be to keep me away from people who places little value on my life. Another thing was to keep away from bad neighborhoods where people are not so fortunate. I guess those may go hand and hand sometimes.

The result is that I grew up in a fantasy land. The people around me or the ones I chose to be around were not worried about their basic well being which forced them to focus on their greater self. This is what most people refer to as the upper levels of Maslow’s hierarchy.

Coming to India has completely shattered my existing mindset as I have to directly deal with people who still are concerned with their basic well being living in a very tough world. For example, hardly anyone here would feel any sympathy for me if I was getting screwed over by a fruit vendor even though everyone was aware of it.

This is very different from America where people still hold justice as a great ideal. Despite sometimes not acting according to their beliefs, Americans are proud that “All Men Are Created Equal”.

Unlike this American mindset, I have to become much more aware of a different way of thinking not just to protect my wallet from being emptied but for my own well being. I’ve already been lied to multiple times which would have been an outrage in America.

Another thing I experience is that people also have no problem flattering you and making you feel special. I know enough to realize most of it is very contrived, but it still gets to you. It seems as if some people here are intentionally trying make friends with you just to use you.

My friends still warn me that many people have no limits and would put you in harms way if it someway benefited them.

So what about the people who are wealthy and have their basic needs met? From what I’ve heard, these people are even worse as they didn’t get to where they are by playing nice.

I could just become extremely upset and start resenting Indians, but that is quite short sighted. There is a reason for everything, and this is what I am trying to figure out.

From a evolutionary perspective, this type of short term selfish thinking makes sense. It’s a rough world and you need to put food on the table to survive. You also need to help out your community that will have your back.

However, a foreigner or someone outside of his or her direct community is unlikely to affect you in the long term, so the best option is just to use and abuse.

Of course, not everyone acts like this and some people may call me a racist for even pointing this out, but it seems the vast majority does, and it has a direct effect on me. To put things fairly, I’m pretty darn selfish myself, but I personally have a different perspective as well as a safety net (food and shelter) that allows me to not worry a lot of things that I would call petty.

I have definitely oversimplified the issue, but I hope to delve into it much deeper with more experience in India or more specifically, Lucknow or North India. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything because it really opens my eyes to how people really are. I believe all people including me have the capability of doing terrible things, but we are just blinded with ideals living in places like America. I will admit I have done some things in the past that is no better than I am experiencing here, but I continually try to better myself and not succumb to my primitive desires.

P.S. Indians are incredibly nice people. Without the advice from friends, I would write a blog post telling you that India is the friendliest country in the world. However, reality is reality, and understanding these issues directly affect my well being.