Balance ~Part 1~

Balance. It is a lot like oxygen; necessary for sustainable life, but taken for granted unless threat of deprivation is impending. Due to the nature of our program, we have had many conversations pertaining to perceptions of balance and discussions of hypothetical ways to achieve it. At face value, balance seems so simple; however its appearance is quite deceiving. To give you my imagery of perfect balance, you must first start by imaging a color scale with black on one end and white on the other. They are polar opposites, both physically and abstractly, but can also be seamlessly harmonious. For the sake of my description, the numeric value Ive given to black is 0 and white is 100. Now picture every color that would fall in-between the two, and don’t just think of 98 other colors, think of a color for every possible decimal point between 0 and 100. In my mind, perfect balance would be shade that falls exactly at 50.00. Would this color be what we call grey? Would it be something else completely? Would it be light or dark? To me, answering these questions is nearly impossible, solely because there are so many possibilities. The range of possibilities is another essential thing to consider in this situation, is perfect balance one thing, or made up of many things? Every person may choose a different shade of one color, due to the fact that people actually perceive color differently. So what seems absolute to you, may appear utterly wrong to me; yet another obstacle to declaring true balance. At the end of the day, creating perfect balance may be a task we have to accept is not humanly possible.

One of the first things that struck me (after I’d settled into Zanzibar to the extent that I could make somewhat accurate subjective observations, that is) is that people here are much closer. Interpersonal relationships are notably stronger and immediate social networks have a very wide span, typically across all of Unguja island and in most cases over to Pemba island. (These are the 2 islands that Zanzibar is made up of.) This strength can be attributed to cultural ideas about family and community, both from a religious and Zanzibari standpoint. The other main factor it can be attributed does stem from culture, but is also something in and of itself different; the value Zanzibari people place on technology.

The inspiration to compile all these thoughts in a post came to me in a dream, as it just so happens. Recently, I’ve been spending lots of time applying for various summer internships at different aquariums across the United States. On a day that I turned 3 applications in, I had a dream I scored an interview for an education position at one in California. When I walked in there were children everywhere, but they were all looking at real-time tanks on MacBooks. I think it was somewhat of a futuristic dream because the computers could bend; but the point is that even though they were in a building filled with marine exhibits the children were still totally hypnotized by the computers. None of the kids could take their focus away from the screens long enough to interact with me at all, even to the point of returning a hello. In my heart of hearts, I believe one of the driving reasons I became interested in working at an aquarium in the first place is their beauty, obviously.  But more than that, their power to detach people from their virtual world and make them want to live in the present. Living in the moment and being present among other things, helps you to form deep-rooted bonds with those around you.

In high school, I was glued to my phone constantly. When I started college that all changed, allowing me to truly expand my view of the world and really start to develop opinions about things bigger than myself. I generally don’t like to take hard stances on things because I think the world is ever-changing. To me, hard stances are a breeding grounded for close-minded-ness. Something I do feel quite strongly about however, is the ever-increasing trend of children being introduced to (and getting hooked on) smart products so early in their development. I have seen babies who do not know how to talk or walk be able to use an iPad better than I can. Comparing my childhood with the childhood youth these days have honestly makes me sad. My childhood is filled with memories of playing outside from dawn to dusk, creating games from random outside objects, and long conversations with imaginary friends. I know not everyone from my generation had this same experience, but a childhood similar to this among people my age seems to be more of a rule rather than an exception. Whereas today, it appears the opposite is true.

I realize it is taking me awhile to get back to the point of balance but bear with me!

In my Zanzibari family, I have a 6 year old and a 2 year old brother. The family owns a smart tablet; I saw it one time through out the course of a month for the sole purpose of looking at an old picture. Everyday when I got home from school I played with my brothers until they went to bed. Even though I don’t understand much of what the little guys are saying most of the time, they would always tell me long elaborate stories (and include illustrations in my journal whenever I let them get their hands on it.) My Zanzibari family is extremely close and tight knit. When I am at home, all my time is spent with them, both because I really love them and constant together-ness is the norm here.

Depending on the reader, either situation above might seem more ideal than the other. Ideality is another topic altogether, so to get back to balance, there must be consideration of the pros and cons for each. In what has become the norm in America, meaning people being so deeply invested in their virtual worlds, they are sacrificing lots of interpersonal bonds. We often are not attached to our communities in any way, I would venture to say a lot of you have never had an actual conversation with your neighbors. Our nations youth place more value on the amount of instagram followers they have than getting to know their aunts and uncles. On the other hand, being so technologically savvy can be invaluably beneficial. It gives us grand opportunities to be global citizens from the comfort of our own homes, to become aware of small scale (but important) crises going on all over the world, to be connected to people at opposite sides of the country/world, to learn about political unrest oceans away, to keep entire parts of our personalities hidden, etc.

To contrast, Zanzibari people are connected to the point they do not typically mail letters or packages domestically. The main form of public transportation here is called Dala-Dala, They are fundamentally like a transit bus. Anyways, if some one in Stonetown (Central West coast) needed to get a parcel to someone in Paje, (East Coast) the sender could give it to a dala-Dala driver in the morning and it would for sure get to the receiver by noon. Another intriguing product of the tight-kittedness of the community is informal crime watch. Homes here are rarely broken into because it’s common knowledge that some one will always be watching. Anecdotal stories Ive heard around town also make it seem like in the rare case of theft, things are reclaimed within a day.

People on the island grow up with a strong network, giving them lots of familial and communal support. They value family relationships, and usually maintain very close relationships with their parents through out their entire lives. A possible con of the tight knitted-ness is strict parental obedience, I have talked to so many women here who despise their husbands but are essentially stuck with them because doing anything else would be disrespectful to their parents. Such strong relationships through out the island also perpetuate a very local viewpont, which indirectly make conservation efforts somewhat of a challenge. Family, by nature has a tendency to force unconditional love between incompatible people; the unspoken mandatory together-ness norms can cause potentially toxic relationships. Introverted personalities here, do not really exist or at least function well because individuals are constantly surrounded by people.

Lets refer to them as “extremes”, either side has a wide skew of pros and cons. A perfect balance would need to contain elements from each situation, but in this case, various elements from one place are not feasible in another. For example, the internet’s potential to enable people to become global citizens simply is not possible in Zanzibar due to bad connection. Shifting the values of young people in America away from being so technologically centered would require a massive compliance and all around total change in culture. More often than not, when balance comes into question, it is when a problem has breached the point of being controlled. When a large-scale problem becomes apparent, things have often gone too far to restore even a semi-balanced state. If balance could be a state of being that people strived for on a daily basis, I feel it would keep a wide variety of things from being “problems” in the first place.

This post was quite challenging for me to write. As I wrote it, a continuum of perspectives about this dynamic idea flowed into my mind. In addition, there are a multitude of situations I wanted to write about to help illustrate my point, but I did not expect this seemingly small point to necessitate so many words. Now that I have gotten this post done however, I hope to write about my other observations and thoughts in reference to this post! I strongly welcome any feedback and further conversation :]

                                                       ~Until Next Time~