Is it really all about stuff?
I love bookstores. In January, I discovered a cool one in Victoria, BC (Munro’s Books!). I love to wander the isles and be drawn into thumbing through books based on their title, cover and genre. I may not ‘judge’ a book by its cover but the art on the cover, title, and tagline entices me to pick it up-doing this ‘digitally’ at Amazon isn’t the same.
On this particular day, a small volume in bright orange caught my eye The New Silk Roads — The New Asia and the Remaking of the World Order by Peter Frankopan. I picked it up and flipped it over to read the back cover. I am a history nut, love current events and politics, so reading about the “Remaking of the World Order” intrigued me. I quickly realized this is a follow-up book to a much larger volume, The Silk Roads — A New History of the World. I now remembered that I had thumbed through it on a previous visit to the store. It’s a VOLUME, to be sure. If the orange book is coming home with me, the ‘prequel’ should too. Luckily, the original volume was in the “NOW REDUCED” bin! I got them both (full price on the orange book, and I don’t mind, the author deserves to eat too!)
I finished Silk Roads — A New History of the WORLD last night. It took me two months reading on and off to accomplish it. It is heavy. It is intellectual, thoroughly researched (my goodness, the endnotes are 100+ pages!) and delivered what it promised. In the acknowledgements, Peter reflected on the days spent in libraries with knowledgeable staff assisting him in finding reference material, oftentimes original documents to support his narrative. What deep thinking went into crafting this. I feel like I embarked in a three-semester history course but only scratched the surface. I can not remember a time in university when I finished the entire text cover to cover. I am primed for the next book, the one that lured me in.
I am not prepared to sit the exam; I shudder at the papers I may have to write. I sense that google searching will not be adequate research. To attempt a synopsis for you may be equally challenging.
Is it really all about STUFF? The Silk Road is the connection between east and west — linking Asia with Europe (and by extension North America). In this overview of world history, the narrative is the unfolding of the human drama along this road. The ebb and flow of control of the regions it passes through. If I can be so bold as to summarize its existence, it is to facilitate trade — trade of stuff. While political and theological motivations run high in the narrative, we often see convictions put aside to ease the movement of goods. Sometimes the goods consist of essentials but frequently, they are ‘bright shiny objects’ — luxury items. In the last 100 years, the ‘item’ has been energy — oil. So often, the trade of these items often serves to line the pockets of the few, which sparks discontent and wars.
The deep thinking that went into authoring this book translated into deep reading and has caused me to ponder a lot. I am disquieted. While it may seem simple to distill it all down to ‘It’s just about stuff!’ — that realization does not make for simple solutions. It is clear that our current culture of tweets, likes and shares does not help provide context for the events they seek to highlight. To understand the crisis in Ukraine, you NEED to understand the history of the people involved and the importance of the land and location. Closer to home, to know that it’s time to fight for freedom, you need to understand the lack of freedom. To live and act in a democracy, you need to learn the history — and it’s not going to be absorbed in a 5000 years in 5 minutes YouTube video. Education is the cornerstone of democracy; lack of it is a leading cause of a civilization’s collapse. We see the power of filling the void of knowledge with soundbites, clips of video and rabbit holes of disinformation. People grasps these tidbits of learning and turn them into the gospel.
Those who control and seek to control the ‘stuff’ know these things and are all happy to satisfy our hunger for knowledge with a quick fix that supports their desires. Politicians and clerics alike motivate support for their ideology by providing just ‘enough’ carefully crafted context to convince the folk to join their cause. Folk that want stuff.
I like stuff too. I like my bright, shinny objects. I have spent a lot of time and effort acquiring and curating my stuff. But I see now that my relationship with it has to change. I need to seek to reorient myself and focus on relationships — relationship with my creator and relationships with others. There is more than enough ‘stuff’ to go around. When we realize that and work harder to resist the desire to control it, we may truly be in a new world order.
In the meantime, the quest for knowledge continues; The New Silk Road awaits me now.
