MY STORY Wed May 5 17:20:03 US/Eastern 1999 I was raised in Connecticut in a house surrounded by acres of woods and trails, so I spent a lot of my childhood exploring on my own. I always wished I lived in a neighborhood and would beg my parents to move to a "normal" house on a block with other kids so I could play games like "30 Scatters" in the streets after dark! That never happened. Instead, I developed a sense of solitude when school let out and would spend my summers absorbing everything in those woods around me. Looking back, I can't imagine a better experience than the one I had. As an adult, I have lived in New York and now live in San Francisco, a faster pace than the woods behind my house, but places where I can continue to explore and observe with the same sense of curiosity I had when I was younger. I believe that because I lacked this feeling of belonging to a community, I have learned to seek out and appreciate the communities other people belong to even more. This is what led me to studying journalism, which gives me the ticket to entering into other people's lives. I think cultural identity is important in shaping who you are as an individual, but I don't think it has to be from one culture. As a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in a very diverse, multicultural public school, I was the minority. When I look back at who I was intrigued by, I unknowingly was drawn to people from very strong, cultural and ethnic backgrounds: Irish-Catholic, Italian, Jewish and African-American. I went to Christmas Mass, Sunday lasagna dinners, Passover seders and racially mixed parties. I think it's extremely important to experience different cultures, but I don't think it's easy. It requires a conscious effort. I was very lucky that my hometown happened to be extremely diverse, but I have three nieces who live in a very homogeneous town and they don't have that daily exposure. I feel it is a challenge that I want to partake in to ensure that they grow up at least aware of other ways of life. I don't feel that I have any of my own specific cultural traditions, besides those holidays that fill more of a family connection rather than a religious or cultural significance. My personal traditions come from my own unique experience, such as taking time to go off and explore, whether it's on a big trip for a few months or a short walk down my neighborhood street. I think traditions are extremely important, but they can be any kind of tradition, not necessarily cultural. Ancient ways are important in the sense that they connect you with people who lived in a different place and time. I think it's important to be aware of these ancient ways, but also to be able to evaluate them in connection with the present. Not all ancient ways have a place in today's world. I think it's important to be able to make that distinction. -- gke@maidenvoyage.com (Jennifer Belcher) YOUR STORY Thu May 6 17:28:17 US/Eastern 1999 I understand what you're saying about your background. I feel like mine isn't worth much either. -- n/a (Frank Harris) SIGNIFICANCE Wed May 19 16:11:33 US/Eastern 1999 Mike: I think you missed the point of my story. I don't think my background isn't worth much, I'm just not limiting myself to it. There is so much you can gain through putting yourself into other communities and cultures that limiting yourself to your own experience is closing yourself off to so much more. I would hate to think that anyone would ever consider their background as insignificant. Your background is as significant as any, even if it feels less "cultural." Have you ever researched your geneology? You should try it, you'd be amazed at how your perspective can change. Jennifer -- jenbelcher@hotmail.com (Jennifer Belcher) SIGNIFICANCE Wed May 19 16:12:25 US/Eastern 1999 Frank: I think you missed the point of my story. I don't think my background isn't worth much, I'm just not limiting myself to it. There is so much you can gain through putting yourself into other communities and cultures that limiting yourself to your own experience is closing yourself off to so much more. I would hate to think that anyone would ever consider their background as insignificant. Your background is as significant as any, even if it feels less "cultural." Have you ever researched your geneology? You should try it, you'd be amazed at how your perspective can change. Jennifer -- jenbelcher@hotmail.com (Jennifer Belcher) JEN'S RESPONSE TO FRANK Fri May 21 15:50:16 US/Eastern 1999 Miss Belcher, I sincerely appreciate the grace which you employed to respond to Frank's interpretation of your background and his distressing sense of his own. I am currently dying laughing at the subtlety of your first sentence, " Frank, I think you missed the point of my story. In any event, you gave a very well thought out and interesting take on your seemingly blessed upbringing and on the solitude that you discovered and developed in those enchanted woods. Thank you for your thoughts. -Freddie -- emptyhand8@aol.com (Freddie Jenkins) RESPONE Wed Oct 6 19:43:40 US/Eastern 1999 I am a second carreer man studying for the Catholic Priesthood. If anyone can talk about community, traditions, the importance of ancient ways and cultural identity it is the Catholic Church. We've been trough the worst and the best of it. I think a major issue in our society is the very serious lack of community, of traditions, and learning from the ancients. It's almost like we find ourselves too good for this. I think we Americans are way too indivualitistic. Egalatarinism has become the focal philosophy for our country. But the ancients such as Plato and Aristotle beleive in the opposite. Theirs was a ideal of community. Human beings are called to communal. We were not created to live alone. I recently heard a NPR story concerning the 10 milliuon women who live on their own in America. I find this very disturbing. That means that are potnetially 10 million men who are living on their own also. The NPR story made thsi out to be something good and prefered, but yet we are not supposed to be that way. We are created for togetherness, community, and most importantly family. And yet we Americans are proud of our independnece. Something is wrong with the picture of 20 million men and women being independent What is going to happen when those 20 million are old. Will they have anyone near them in their dying hour? Will they have the pleaure of playing with grand kids? I think this is a very sad but potentially destructive problem for the good of the whole. The Polynesians and most other cultures wouldn't dream of doing anything of a sort. Our culture isn't so "advanced" after all. We pressure oursleves to make money, to purchase things, to get ahead, and then we grow old alone. I would rather be broke then alone. I wonder how many spiritual and mental health problems the Polynesians and other communal cultures have compared to us? And so this is the imprortnace of tradtions, of cultural values, of community. It gives us the opportunity to carry on legacies just like our parents before us. It gives us something to pass down to children of the next generation and so on. I beleve that if we Americns look deeply enough we will find that the problems that we have are simply due to being too indivualistic and materialistc with a tendency for isolationism. We need family! We need each other! Traditions and community gives us that. -- jpally@hotmail.com (John Palatucci) RESPONSE Wed Oct 6 19:43:53 US/Eastern 1999 I am a second carreer man studying for the Catholic Priesthood. If anyone can talk about community, traditions, the importance of ancient ways and cultural identity it is the Catholic Church. We've been trough the worst and the best of it. I think a major issue in our society is the very serious lack of community, of traditions, and learning from the ancients. It's almost like we find ourselves too good for this. I think we Americans are way too indivualitistic. Egalatarinism has become the focal philosophy for our country. But the ancients such as Plato and Aristotle beleive in the opposite. Theirs was a ideal of community. Human beings are called to communal. We were not created to live alone. I recently heard a NPR story concerning the 10 milliuon women who live on their own in America. I find this very disturbing. That means that are potnetially 10 million men who are living on their own also. The NPR story made thsi out to be something good and prefered, but yet we are not supposed to be that way. We are created for togetherness, community, and most importantly family. And yet we Americans are proud of our independnece. Something is wrong with the picture of 20 million men and women being independent What is going to happen when those 20 million are old. Will they have anyone near them in their dying hour? Will they have the pleaure of playing with grand kids? I think this is a very sad but potentially destructive problem for the good of the whole. The Polynesians and most other cultures wouldn't dream of doing anything of a sort. Our culture isn't so "advanced" after all. We pressure oursleves to make money, to purchase things, to get ahead, and then we grow old alone. I would rather be broke then alone. I wonder how many spiritual and mental health problems the Polynesians and other communal cultures have compared to us? And so this is the imprortnace of tradtions, of cultural values, of community. It gives us the opportunity to carry on legacies just like our parents before us. It gives us something to pass down to children of the next generation and so on. I beleve that if we Americns look deeply enough we will find that the problems that we have are simply due to being too indivualistic and materialistc with a tendency for isolationism. We need family! We need each other! Traditions and community gives us that. -- jpally@hotmail.com (John Palatucci) RESPONSE Wed Oct 6 19:47:56 US/Eastern 1999 I am a second carreer man studying for the Catholic Priesthood. If anyone can talk about community, traditions, the importance of ancient ways and cultural identity it is the Catholic Church. We've been trough the worst and the best of it. I think a major issue in our society is the very serious lack of community, of traditions, and learning from the ancients. It's almost like we find ourselves too good for this. I think we Americans are way too indivualitistic. Egalatarinism has become the focal philosophy for our country. But the ancients, such as Plato and Aristotle beleived in the opposite. Theirs was a ideal of community. Human beings are called to be communal. We were not created to live alone. I recently heard an NPR story concerning that 10 million women live on their own in America. I find this very disturbing. That means that are potentially 10 million men who are living on their own, also. The NPR story made this out to be something good and prefered; but yet we are not supposed to be that way. We are created for togetherness, community, and most importantly family. And yet we Americans are proud of our independnece. Something is wrong with the picture of 20 million men and women being independent. What is going to happen when those 20 million are old. Will they have anyone near them in their dying hour? Will they have the pleasure of playing with grand kids? I think this is a very sad but potentially destructive problem for the good of the whole. The Polynesians and most other cultures wouldn't dream of doing anything of a sort. Our culture isn't so "advanced" after all. We pressure oursleves to make money, to purchase things, to get ahead, and then we grow old alone. I would rather be broke then alone. I wonder how many spiritual and mental health problems the Polynesians and other communal cultures have compared to us? And so this is the imprortnace of tradtions, of cultural values, of community. It gives us the opportunity to carry on legacies just like our parents before us. It gives us something to pass down to children of the next generation and so on. I beleve that if we Americns look deeply enough we will find that the problems that we have are simply due to being too indivualistic and materialistc with a tendency for isolation-ism. We need family! We need each other! Traditions and community gives us that. -- jpally@hotmail.com (John Palatucci) WAYFINDER INFO Sun Jun 3 11:40:35 US/Eastern 2001 hi jen! i am a navigator 27yrs old born in india in a hindu background ,i became a christian in 1993 and what you said of differnt cultures is so true.i am in uk now and having a culture which i was brought up and the western culture is so so differnt and being a sailor i travel a lot at differnt places ,i was very imperssed with wayfinders and i want to know more about it,if you could help me that will be great. thanxs archie -- archie40005@yahoo.com (archie)