Wednesday, June 5, 2013

The Assimilation Dilemma: Appreciating the Past vs. Living in it

Fighting Assimilation
My body landed in the United States on April 6, 2013, after a year and half in Asia, while my mentality took the slow boat back to the homeland. It's taken two long months for me to finally report: I'm nearly all present (minus the pieces of my heart distributed around Asia.)

The readjustment period has been interesting, frustrating, rewarding and challenging; full of ups and downs, defined by a perpetual state of feeling torn [(adj.) - split, divided, wavering, separated].

Consciously or not, I tried to fight the assimilation. I held on tight to my idealistic perspective developed from traveling. I refused to eat meat from the despicable farm-factory food industry where we are too separate from the source of our food in America. I continued to re-wear my few articles of clothing, turning down my mom's once-in-a-blue moon offer to take me shopping. I'd just lived out of a backpack for six months, where I found profound happiness in a minimalist lifestyle - why attach myself to more, unnecessary material goods?