Life in the Land of Plenty

I have a problem that has haunted me for a very long time. It has two major parts: (1) why was I born where and when I was, and (2) how guilty should I feel about living in the land of plenty. The first part of this is not too difficult to understand, although the understanding is so rudimentary as to not be very satisfying. That is, I didn’t have any control over where I was born or when, so why should I be concerned about it. But it has concerned me ever since I was a small boy. I was born in America, the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth, as well as one that I should be rightly very proud of as it does offer free speech and other freedoms denied to many of the other peoples on earth. But I cannot get over the fact that I was born here and now, and not somewhere else where things are so much worse. Why, that is, was I not born a poor Indian, or perhaps an Arab, or maybe an Australian Aborigine? Of all the places and cultures on earth how is it that I, among a relatively small elite population, was so lucky, when so many others were born into poverty and misery? I have always wondered about this ever since I can remember. I do not feel guilty about it as I realize I had nothing to do with it. But who or what did have something to do with it? Was my birth merely a random act in a completely random universe? Was there some supernatural power overseeing my birth? Is my current being a reward (or punishment) for some previous condition that I cannot remember? I know I will never know the answer to this, and I know there is nothing I can do about it. It just is.
Unfortunately, my rudimentary understanding of the first part of the problem does not help me with the second part. I had nothing to do with part one, and could not have had anything to do with it, but that is not the case with part two. It was a visit to our Supermarket today that reminded me again of the complexity of this second part. Ours is a quite small supermarket as such places go. Even so, I am always stunned when I walk the aisles and observe the commodities for sale there. One of the things that I marvel at, which I have written about previously, is a bin or case or whatever you call it, where there are frozen, pre-formed potatoes of all kinds. This case is a full 30 or more feet long and about 3 feet wide, and is dedicated to nothing but frozen potatoes. There must be easily 25 or 30 different types, probably more (see Morialekafa 4-14-05). On one opposite wall runs a store length freezer section that features various frozen dinners and ice creams. There must be 20 or 30 varieties of frozen pizzas, and also that many or more varieties of ice cream. A similar store length freezer on the other side of the frozen potato bin contains frozen already prepared dinners. There seem to be dozens upon dozens of these, not only representing different types of meals, but also the same meals by different companies. Virtually the entire store is dedicated to this kind of diversity. There are two huge aisles of nothing but snacks: crackers, chips, pretzels, cookies, toasts, nuts, dips, popcorns, crunchy things of all kinds. Even this pales into insignificance when compared with the aisles of breakfast foods. Pet foods, too, take up two large rows of space, cat and dog foods almost as far as the eye can see. The really large bags of dog and cat food occupy a special aisle of their own. Diversity seems to be the rule. Even toilet paper and paper towels come in many different varieties. Indeed, virtually any item you might think of comes in many more than just one type. I will not even comment on what you find in the canned food sections of this modern day emporium. Or even worse, what exists in the way of toothpaste, shaving creams, hair spray, deodorants, and such things. We are certainly offered a choice. You cannot even send your children to the store to buy a loaf of bread, or a roll of toilet paper, or even a box of crackers or some shampoo, without precise specifications clearly spelled out as to exactly what make and type you desire. Thank goodness for cell phones. Anyway, why should this bother me? Like the first part of the problem, it’s basically out of my hands, there is little or nothing I can do about it. But it still bothers me dreadfully. First of all, I think of the starving Palestinians in Gaza, or starving children around the world, and I think it is decidedly unfair that we should have so much while most of the world has so little. Even though there is little or nothing I can do about it, I still feel guilty. But what bothers me equally is simply that I think it is absurd. I have no idea how one might decide how many different kinds of frozen potatoes there should be, but the idea that there are frozen potatoes at all strikes me as absurd, and the fact that there are so many different types strikes me as doubly absurd. I simply do not believe that in order to live happily and healthy we really need all these frozen potatoes, nor do I believe it is necessary to have so many different varieties of toilet paper. I guess we can just chalk this up to a consumer-driven society gone mad. I try to restrict my shopping to the end of the market where they still sell real food: potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, celery, fruit, meat and fish, stuff like that. It’s basically all I can understand.