As in Senegal

This week I have been trying to impress upon my students the importance of stories and how the ones we are told as we grow, the ones we believe, the ones that stay with us influence the people we become.  This lesson has been central to the oral tradition of Native American literature--particularly as it relates to origin myths--and to the God fearing Puritans who were, in the words of Alfred Kazin, "certain of the next world but never sure of man in this one."  


When discussing the ethnocentric view of the white settlers and their need to identify the Natives they encountered as savage or barbarian, I explained to my students that the settlers needed the narrative they created--their story--to make sense of a culture they weren't equipped to understand.  Having been born and bred in a culture controlled by biblical and royal law, the whites didn't recognize the intricate and beautiful system of tribal codes and law that existed in this country long before they arrived.


This long preamble is here to set up what happened when I asked each class if any of them had ever experienced that feeling of complete lack of control that comes from being in a completely foreign situation.  Many had, but this story stuck with me, and led me to develop the theory I'm going to get to in a minute (I swear I will--hang with me).  One student said he had traveled to Senegal and, while there, rode in a car with a native driver.  The thing that made him so uncomfortable was that Senegal has no traffic laws (since hearing this story, I've done some research and it appears there are laws, but they aren't strictly enforced or followed).  The student said riding in a car there made him feel completely out of control and anxious because nothing that was happening--excessively exceeding speed limits and driving on sidewalks--made sense to him.  Once he trusted his driver, though, every subsequent trip was easier to handle (though never totally peaceful).


The conclusion I've come to is that, in the U.S., we expect one another to adhere to a certain set of cultural laws and codes--as well as legal ones, like traffic laws--and those expectations lead us to make all sorts of dangerous assumptions.  If I come to a stop sign, I believe the person approaching the intersection on the other side is going to follow the same rules I know to follow, so I don't actually have to pay them a great deal of attention.  I can cruise to the stop sign and then cross the intersection without really looking up at all, as long as I believe the other driver will do what I expect her to.  Whereas, in Senegal, the drivers are attuned to each other, watching for the other drivers' actions and responding in kind, being more aware of one another as opposed tuning into themselves so much that they don't really notice what's happening around them.


Which brings me to my point: wouldn't we all be better off if we stopped expecting one another to follow some obscure and in a lot of cases highly personal set of codes and laws and, instead, starting watching each other to see when we could pull ahead, when we needed to slow down, and when we need to stop altogether to allow someone else to move forward?  It seems, lately, that many of my friends are caught in places of stasis because they feel so compelled to live according to someone else's expectations and not one of them, if I asked them to be really honest with me, would say they're happy about it.


So, my challenge is this: live your life as though you were a Senegalese driver, knowing your own progress only occurs if you are willing not to follow others rules, but to follow your own instincts, always watching for the break in the traffic that lets you move, even if only a few feet at a time, ever, only, always, forward.