10.15

Saul Bellow once wrote, in the foreword to Allan Bloom's book, that "as the son of immigrant parents, I recognized at an early age that I was called upon to decide for myself to what extent my Jewish origins, my surroundings, my schooling, were to be allowed to determine the course of my life. I did not intend to be wholly dependent on history and culture." This reflection very closely describes my predicament. The Western ideas transformed me into someone who is alien to my parents; meanwhile, I too suffer from being torn between my origin and my education.
My education separates me from my family with regard to the belief of what is good. I would have ignorantly but happily and industriously studied certain subjects without coveting for great ideals that lead to an impossible road. I would have already settled down in a small town, having an executable life plan. But now I am restless, fridget, sometimes even depressed, by a feeling of impossibility. Nowhere am I finding solace in a foreign land and an antagonistic market.
I was timid. I feared to see my own underperformance in many subjects and types of work among my peers, and therefore I shun from these areas and seek an illusory strength in the great ideas. I wanted to become better and stronger and hoped that an education would be corrective of the shortcomings in my thinking and conduct, but now I find myself still in the original shape, apart from the alien beliefs my parents feel uncomfortable to accept. I set out to seek freedom, but probably is ending up in a closing mind. Now I long for peace, simplicity, and freedom from covetous wishes, because my mind has been a battlefield of these wishes for long.
But simplicity won't take me far either. Returning to my origin would mean exposing my weaknesses, and since I have not become bolder but have only shunned away from what I was not good at, I probably won't fare better either.