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CONVERSATION LESSON

HUMAN CARGO AND EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

Aaron: Hey Dan, how’s it going?

Dan: Doing pretty good. How are you doing, Aaron?

Aaron: I’m hanging in there. I noticed you had a pretty big bag with you when you walked in today.

Dan: Yeah, what business is that of yours? Mind your own business, buddy.

Aaron: Well, you actually brought in two bags.

Dan: I got presents for you.

Aaron: Oh, really? Oh good. I was hoping you–

Dan: I got a secret box for you.

Aaron: Oh, really. Okay, I wonder what’s inside.

Dan: So we’re talking about bags. That’s….how apropos of you… how deftly done.

Aaron: Okay, bags, baggage, cargo.

Dan: Bags, baggage, boxes, cargo.

Aaron: Luggage, suitcases.

Dan: Right. Which is your favorite?

Aaron: I have a favorite bag. It’s a small piece of luggage that’s carry-on size and I use it frequently when I travel.

Dan: Okay, let’s talk about something interesting. I want to know why is it, I’m a big fan of backpacks, but if you’re working at a job or you’re supposed to be a professional, for some reason that’s not professional to have a backpack.

Aaron: Really? And where have you heard that?

Dan: Where do you work?

Aaron: I see all kinds of people with suits with backpacks on.

Dan: Yeah, probably some of your goony friends.

Aaron: But I must admit it does look a little odd.

Dan: Well, I think it looks fine. But no, you got to have a briefcase or you got to have a one-strap bicycle messenger bag. Somehow, one-strap is professional, two-straps you’re a goon.

Aaron: Yeah, who comes up with these rules?

Dan: Not fair. But our first story in this month’s lesson was not about bags but about cargo. So we usually talk about cargo for big shipments of commercial goods or produce or manufactured products.

Aaron: Yeah, things that are moved from one place to another in an industrial sort of way.

Dan: For companies or governments. You usually don’t talk about sending your own personal cargo.

Aaron: No, we don’t usually use that word when we’re talking about our own personal vehicles and things like that.

Dan: Right. So our story was talking about the US military and the cargo that they were sending to their soldiers in the south Pacific, and how the local population in Vanuatu took that to be a form of magic.

Aaron: That’s right. Actually, Arthur C. Clark has a quote that’s related to that, that… “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Dan: Indistinguishable from magic, sure. If you can imagine our technology of cellphones and all the power we have in our pockets, if we were to go back even 150 years ago, they would burn us as witches.

Aaron: That’s right. But even going back 20 years when we were young adults, teenagers, wow, I mean, even the first time I saw an iPhone, I was blown away. I couldn’t believe it. It’s like mindboggling that that technology existed. Now we take it for granted. My children, that’s second nature to them, whereas for us, it’s pretty amazing. And imagine, in 20 or 30 years when we’re older men, what are we going to be? The technology we’re using now is going to look like just old, clunky things. It’s amazing. It’s totally mind-boggling.

Dan: Anyhow, these people on one hand, you can think, oh look at those primitive people, that they had this ridiculous idea that the military cargo was magic. But on the other hand, it’s kind of natural that if you saw something so beyond your ability to understand, that you would naturally look at what conditions, what’s the situation that surrounds this technology?

Aaron: And where is the source of that? And clearly to those people from Vanuatu, they’re seeing these people that look just like them in many ways, but yet they are living this life of riches and they have all these magical tools and things fall from the sky, so clearly it must be God. It must be.

Dan: One of their jeeps breaks, they don’t fix it and all of a sudden a new engine arrives from the sky.

Aaron: That would be pretty amazing if you didn’t understand where those things where going from.

Dan: That’s really probably the future for all of us with drone delivery. Anyhow, back to that story.

What I find interesting is the myth around John Frum. There’s different stories about the origin. I think the version we tell is that this shaman went into the jungle and he drank this tea, the Cava, and he had a vision of John Frum. And John Frum was a god who… Actually they have connected this character John Frum with a local god of some mountain in Vanuatu. So that’s one version of the story, that John Frum came to him in a vision and said, “I will be coming and I will send the Europeans away and I will give you wealth and riches if you return to our traditional culture.” Because at that time, 30s, pre-World War II, pre-US soldiers’ arrival on Vanuatu, there were European missionaries who had outlawed—

Aaron: The local religious practices and some of the traditions.

Dan: And just cultural practices

Aaron: Trying to convert them to Christianity.

Dan: Yeah, one of them being Kava. They had outlawed Kava and if you got caught drinking Kava, they would send you to prison, hard labor. This shaman had this vision of John Frum, he came back and told everybody about it and then they started to reject the Christian missionaries. And lo and behold, the Europeans did leave not so long after that and then these new visitors came.

Aaron: Who were different, they weren’t oppressive like the previous— Dan: Yeah, I mean, given time they probably would become oppressive but I think their interest was just having a base and they probably needed some labor and apparently they paid quite well for the labor. So they saw the Europeans leave, they saw these friendly new visitors and these new visitors were very generous with their wealth. That’s one version of the story. But then another version of the story is that John Frum didn’t appear in a vision; he actually appeared to different local people.

Aaron: I see. So it wasn’t just one vision, it was multiple visions.

Dan: And then another vision is that his coming or his appearance didn’t predate the Americans but it actually happened while the Americans were here.

Aaron: Ah, that one seems to make sense, too.

Dan: And so John Frum would actually send the Americans away, and some people thought maybe the origin is John Frum was an actual US soldier.

Aaron: Could be.

Dan: Some people, they did some checking on this name Frum, and looking through the military records, there were about four Frums, people with the surname, last name Frum, who served in the military during that time period, but none of them in the south Pacific.

Aaron: I see. I wonder where they were from?

Dan: Well, that’s another thing. They actually guess, some people guess, well maybe that is an abbreviation of ‘John from America’, and they just changed it to ‘John Frum’.

Aaron: With a ‘u’ instead of an ‘o’.

Dan: Yeah. Then another interpretation is that it’s either Dutch or German or some variation of a name. I think it was ‘Brum’, and they thought that the local pronunciation of ‘Brum’, which could have been a colonist, a European colonist, would be ‘Frum’. So there’s a lot of different stories. But what’s really interesting is that there are still followers of John Frum today, 70, 80 years later, depending on when you want to decide is the starting point.

Aaron: I just wonder to what extent…we call them followers… but maybe they’re just sort of celebrating a tradition that got started back. I mean just like we do in our culture, at Christmas time we build a tree and Santa Claus comes to visit us and it’s kind of this celebration. Or like with the Easter, the Easter eggs and there’s supposed to be an Easter bunny that comes. Maybe it’s something like that. Maybe there’s a connection to those traditions that were associated with that cult. Maybe the cult is not… I don’t know. I wonder if those people now who are upholding those traditions truly believe in this or if it’s just celebration.

Dan: Yeah, that would be interesting. I wonder if there are some videos on YouTube of John Frum celebrations. Maybe it’s just something for kids that they do, like a parade.

Aaron: Yeah, I’m curious.

Dan: Apparently, they still dress up as US soldiers and with their mock rifles and they look to the skies.

Aaron: Let’s see if there’s a documentary on that. I’d be interested in watching.

Dan: Yeah, if we find that, we’ll post that.

Aaron: Okay, cool.

Dan: The other story was Henry Box Brown.

Aaron: Yeah, Henry Brown. Mailed himself to freedom.

Dan: Crammed his body – apparently he’s a big guy, I think he was 220 pounds or 100 kilos – in a box that was 3 foot by 2 foot by 2 ½ foot.

Aaron: Yeah, that’s pretty tiny.

Dan: It’s very small.

Aaron: It kind of makes you wonder, why didn’t he use a bigger box?

Dan: Maybe he didn’t have the money?

Aaron: Maybe it was more expensive. Maybe he was afraid that if someone saw a bigger box and it didn’t weigh as much as they thought it should weigh, that they would open it up and find out what’s inside. I don’t know.

Dan: Or maybe just somebody messed up and it was too late to make a bigger box.

Aaron: Who knows? It sounds like he knew ahead of time that he was putting his life at risk. There could be complications with the box being held up or being delayed somehow and he could die of thirst, of starvation or asphyxiation or something. It sounds like a pretty unpleasant way to spend a few days and I think that it’s very telling of how desperate he felt the situation was in that time period. So it makes me wonder, too, to what extent would any of us take those kinds of risks with our own life for the sake of freedom?

Dan: Well, I mean, in this story, at least according to history, really the turning point was losing his family and then he wouldn’t have taken that risk. He didn’t have his freedom but he enjoyed a certain measure of happiness being able to have his own house and his children and his wife, and it was having that taken away from him that he really felt that he had nothing left to lose.

Aaron: Nothing left to lose, right. I just wonder if other people in that similar situation would not take those drastic measures to achieve some sort of freedom. Maybe they would find the freedom within to endure this state of suffering, but do it in a way that they inwardly can find freedom rather than an external freedom. It’s just something curious.

Dan: I imagine that must be the history of slavery in the US, that there always was an opportunity for escape but your chances were very low and the risks were just too high. There’s horrible stories of what they would do. They would cripple you for life.

Aaron: If they caught you running away.

Dan: So there would be no chance, they would maybe amputate, cut off your leg from the knee.

Aaron: Oh God, it’s terrible.

Dan: And that’s on top of all the other kinds of punishments of being whipped and being put really deep into the south and put in a place where you’re going to be working in the hot fields and the worst possible jobs.

Aaron: Oh, geez. The sad thing is that these type of situations where people put their lives at risk to attain freedom is still going on, it’s still happening. The latest of course is the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe. And of course, lot of Central Americans coming into the States put their lives at risk to get across the border to look for more opportunity. Freedom is very important to people, and opportunity.

Dan: This guy, Henry Box Brown, one thing we didn’t have time to get into in the story was he became quite famous after his escape. He had some big mural that we’re actually going to use a copy of in the PDF of the lesson, that he had commissioned. And he travelled with his mural and his box all over the US giving speeches, mainly to people sympathetic to the fighting against labor, abolitionists. Actually, he got of criticism for that.

Aaron: From the abolitionists?

Dan: From some abolitionists who said, you should be keeping this quiet and that way other people will have the opportunity to use this escape method.

Aaron: Yeah, otherwise, he just lets the cat out of the bag.

Dan: I think a counterpoint to that was well, okay, I am explaining in detail this method but I’m also giving inspiration to think creatively about ways to get out. I think that was kind of his position. It seems a little weak, actually.

Aaron: Who knows? Who knows?

Dan: The guys that helped him, Samuel Smith and James Smith, I believe. No relations.

Aaron: Two Smiths. Yeah, they have just the same last name.

Dan: Actually, one was a free black man and one was a white man.

Aaron: Oh, one was a black man?

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Dan: A free black man in the south. They both were arrested separately forAaron: Their involvement in that incident.

Dan: I don’t know if it’s involvement in that incident or trying to mail other slaves out. Interestingly, the white man got sentenced to 6 ½ years and the free black man got off somehow.

Aaron: Oh, really?

Dan: I don’t know how he got off. Maybe he had a good lawyer. Obviously, they were looking for slaves in boxes in the mail after that came out. This guy became so famous. Sometime later in 1960, they passed a law where it was legal for slave hunters from the south to come north and look for escape slaves and bring them back to the south.

Aaron: What year was that?

Dan: 1860.

Aaron: 1860. So near the time of the civil war.

Dan: Yeah, getting close to it. Now, all of a sudden he knew he was at risk and he took off for England and he brought his box with him and his painting with him, and he did a circuit there, a tour there.

Aaron: Well, he really milked that incident for–

Dan: Then he got more criticism. There was some criticism about him not trying hard enough to buy his family out of slavery. I don’t know what the truth to that is.

Aaron: I don’t know if I buy that.

Dan: He did marry a white woman in England and had kids, and then he returned to the US, I imagine after the civil war in maybe the 70s, 1870s or 1880s. By that time, he was a mesmerist, a staged hypnotist, which is interesting.

Aaron: That is odd.

Dan: It makes you wonder whether he just had a natural gift for convincing people into things.

Aaron: Maybe he’s very charismatic or something.

Dan: And that somehow played a part in him getting these guys, Samuel Smith and James, to help him.

Aaron: To help him out, to take risk like that. Wow. That’s interesting. Well, that was quite a piece of cargo, quite a piece of baggage.

Dan: Yeah, human cargo.

Aaron: Of course, baggage, we often use that in a… It has another meaning, another figurative meaning. We’ve talked about physical cargo, physical baggage, but there’s also kind of a more psychological, mental–

Dan: Emotional baggage.

Aaron: Yeah, the connotations are a little different, and these are of course things that we carry around with us that can surface in different situations that cause us some kind of pain or difficulty.

I think everybody, all people carry around emotional baggage, some to more extent than others. I know you have a lot more emotional baggage than I do.

Dan: I’m getting there. But usually, it does apply to people of all ages but a lot of times we hear people who are older.

Aaron: Yeah, because they’ve gone through so many–

Dan: They’ve gone through a lot and they’re carrying a lot of baggage. Sometimes, older people that are dating will say, oh, this guy, he’s got a lot of baggage, he was divorced twice, he’s got six children, he’s gone bankrupt. Or she’s got a lot of baggage, she has all this trauma in her history and if I date her I’m going to have to deal with this.

Aaron: Take on with that baggage and have to deal with it.

Dan: Right. But certainly it applies to everybody, especially you.

Aaron: I think you have a lot more baggage than I do.

Dan: Yeah, I’m carrying you, basically.

Aaron: Right. I’m your excess baggage. You keep thinking that, Dan.

Dan: But usually it sounds like something big, but I think it can apply to little things.

Aaron: Absolutely, little baggage.

Dan: Where little things that we feel are attacking our ego or our pride or little slights or insults that we spend a lot of time thinking about instead of just letting it goAaron: Brooding over.

Dan: The opposite is letting it go. Some of us are better at letting things go than others.

Aaron: I think the people who cannot let go of their baggage so easily over time, suffer a lot more.

And I think that story about the monks carrying the woman over the water perfectly illustrates that.

The one guy who physically carried her over dropped her, and the other guy just kept brooding over it, about how upset he was that she was not thankful and she was rude. And he says, hey, I dropped her like an hour ago, what are you still carrying her for? It’s a nice little story that illustrates how we are really the ones that need to… It’s in our control to drop those things, let go of them. But the difficulty is of course recognizing that that’s happening. If you can do that through awareness, then you can let go easier or more easily.

Dan: I don’t know if that’s the difficulty.

Aaron: What do you think the difficulty is?

Dan: Sometimes you can recognize somebody does something to you and they say something to you, and you just think, man, if I could go back, I would have said this, and I would have said that.

And you find yourself, maybe even the next day or two days later thinking about it and you think, what am I doing? Who cares? That guy is not thinking about it. I’m the one suffering from it. But sometimes we can’t help ourselves.

Aaron: Yeah, every night before I go to bed I’m always thinking about my interactions with you and how much they upset me.

Dan: And then you call me up at the middle of the night.

Aaron: Crying, upset, yelling. Oh, man. But yeah, letting go of the baggage. Letting go of the baggage.

Dan: So with that, let’s let this lesson go.

Aaron: Yeah, let’s do that.

Dan: All righty.

Aaron: All right, we’ll catch you next time.