Travels Through Jordan: Lessons of Culture Carved Out of Wilderness

This week I'm doing something more of a philosophical musing. It doesn't exactly fit into any of the categories for this blog, but I hope it brings value regardless. I'll get back to my culinary focus next week. In the meantime, I hope you'll humor me with this post.

Mark Twain once wrote, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts." What was true over a century ago is true today. At least that's what I found getting lost in a place that so many of my fellow Americans fear and perhaps romanticize...Jordan.

What is it to have been a witness to a country that has literally been carved out of Wilderness? I’ll try to describe my thoughts having just been to one. The modern country of Jordan was carved into existence by foreign forces in the 20th century. It’s ironic given that the people and cultures who existed there had been carving out rich existences throughout the entire region for longer than writing, and perhaps even language.

It is a place where empires have attempted to rule for thousands of years but have been toppled by the harsh environment instead. Only those who could work within the confines of wind and heat and dangerous animals could exist. Only those who were resilient enough to pick up ruins left behind by earthquakes and rebuild could survive. Only those who knew the ways of water could become wealthy. Only those who could work in community with each other could thrive.

Even in modern times, these rules remain true in such an extreme land. Humans judge from afar the ways of people they do not understand. As I’ve learned throughout my life, you cannot understand any one, or any culture without understanding the context of their existence. That was abundantly true as I moved through the length of Jordan. It is a country of extreme beauty, and extreme danger. In such a place, where to be left alone in the wilderness means certain death, culture and community is the only answer.

The warmth of hospitality is a balm of serenity when arriving at a destination after facing the harshness of the heat of the midday sun, the constant billowing of sand against your skin and eyes, keeping a constant watch for poisonous snakes and scorpions, riding a wooden saddled camel in a slow sway for hours on end, and cold nights that are dark and silent apart from the wind whipping across the top of the tent. Cooperation with family and friends means life. Following the codes of conduct ensures cooperation. Breaking customs and rules bring harsh consequences. Life in the desert has proven over the eons that for a community to fall apart means death to all.

Our easy existence has allowed us an opportunity to view from a distance and judge, but coming up close allows us to fully appreciate and respect. It brings into focus a lesson about what it means to thrive. None of us are self-made anything. We depend on others in more ways than we want to admit for our ability to flourish.

We must at the very least learn from the wisdom of generations before us. Just as the Archeologists in Petra are now learning the way of water from the Nabateans 2,000 years after their demise at Roman hands. The trick to our continued ability to grow and thrive is to learn critical wisdom from the past regarding cooperation and community and interacting with our environment to our long-term benefit. We must preserve that wisdom from assault. We must also see how our own actions hold us back from growth.

While I was traveling in peaceful Jordan, chaos and violence was happening across the border in Israel. While freedom and encouragement for equality is growing in Jordan, oppression and misery is expressed in surrounding countries. I heard recently about this theory that countries like Jordan, with relatively low amounts of highly sought after natural resources such as gold or other minerals, have been spared the worst of empirical entanglements over the last 500 years. This has allowed them to create cultures of calm amid upheaval in neighboring countries. Perhaps that is true and will allow Jordanians over the long term to build other valuable resources to enable them to thrive. I hope so at least. Lacking resources other than the richness of cultural heritage, including a lack of water that is only getting worse by the year, makes me nervous for them. Perhaps foundations of focus on education of its population, especially women will help them along with the strong cultural focus on slowly building together for long term growth will pull them through.

Across Jordan, we saw houses that looked abandoned, only to find out that the families who owned them build when they have enough money to do so. When construction is happening, it means the family has had a bit of luck or has slowly saved enough money to move the project forward. This philosophy of slow growth by taking small steps and embracing opportunities that come their way is totally counter to how most American’s have been thinking over the past 50 years. I cannot but think that it is a far more stable way of moving forward. It’s not sexy or instantly satisfying…but look at where that has been taking us? We are increasingly splintered as a society. The myths we have created of the self-made man and the rugged individual are just stories that in the end will cause our downfall. Rome was not destroyed by all the outside forces, but rather the earthquakes created by its own cultural dysfunction. It was only when the empire had self-divided that the outside forces were able to break through. They were able to thrive in the desert only as long as they had internal strength.

Allowing the sickness of believing unhealthy narratives and not having the courage to face our own mistakes and shortcomings is our most serious threat. Rome’s fall was because of this very failure. They avoided seeing the sickness and turned on each other rather than having the courage to look at themselves. They avoided the truth by focusing outside of themselves. Like the mistakes of the Romans, having too much focus on outside pressures will put us in a totally defensive, closed-in posture, that will shut down our ability to thrive. Turning on each other instead of having the courage to look at ourselves will fracture our foundations leaving us vulnerable to earthquakes and floods.

Paying attention to our own cultural and physical infrastructure is essential as is building structures that will allow for innovation and progression. Expansive projects into under-utilized, open resources will help us all is the way to our continued ability to thrive. Oppression of people, of ideas, and of critical thinking are our greatest threats. Operating under a philosophy of scarcity will increasingly be detrimental. Providing economic stability and opportunities for growth of our fellow human beings will allow us all to thrive. Fear of expanding inclusion will undo us.

We should learn a lesson or two from Jordan, where resources are shrinking in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, they are expanding education, planning for the future, while also encouraging an understanding of the past. I am not saying it is better or worse than our own country. There are plenty of problems there. However, for as many problems that they have, there is also hope and the ability to seize opportunities both large and small that come their way. Scarcity does not turn into a free for all, rather community and agreements are respected, and everyone defends those boundaries. When a neighbor is attacked, the community comes to their defense. People protect each other. While tribalism is not the way forward, community building and at the very least respecting differences amongst neighbors is.

People speak to each other; friends do not agree with each other’s philosophies and that is OK. Decisions made in one family that another family finds threatening are still respected. Shoulders are shrugged and the thought may be that there will at least be a lesson learned through a mistake. I see a significant trend in our own society, and even in myself, that other people’s decisions are a personal threat to me. Why is that? Other people’s decisions about their own lives are their own responsibility and do not have any bearing on my own life…until those decisions become a political stance that is. And perhaps that is where we are all wrong. We are turning personal decisions about how we individually manage our own lives into political positions about how others should manage their lives. That’s a divisive posture based in anxiety. Perhaps that’s it. Our need to control is a society-wide anxiety spiral. How do we, as a society collectively breath into a paper bag and gain control over our own minds? How do we feel our feet and realize when our emotions are controlling us we must get back into our own bodies and get a grip?

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/7e17c4_d273603d36684c5bb64ae82f05105468/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Perhaps by simply acknowledging that we need to step back…look at ourselves from an outside view. Travel to another land with perspectives formed by their environment. Where we must understand their cultural context to understand them. Then look back at ourselves and see that, just like the best way to understand the people of another country is understanding context, we can understand our neighbors and ourselves the same way. Begin conversations, ask questions, form a connection through a warm welcome in a harsh environment. Gardens in the desert are made with intention, and in community. We must understand the ways of water to thrive.