A Fist Sized Hole In My Brain

Every time I go home for a break between quarters, my trip puts the striking ignorance of my life into stark contrast. My childhood lacked diversity in a supreme sense, and while I do not fault myself for the circumstances of my birth, or feel particularly ashamed at my upbringing, I can’t help but feel sheltered.

I grew up in a white little suburb called Clifton Park, NY. Situated twenty minutes from Albany and an equal distance from Saratoga, my hometown is a typical middle class American dream, complete with an SUV in every driveway and a Starbucks at every corner.

If you take a drive down Main Street, you’ll pass no less than six churches amidst the fast food joints and chain restaurants, each peddling its own unique brand of Christianity. Another dozen or so churches dot the outskirts of town, and a single (almost token) Jewish Temple is tucked into a lonely side street.

I have never set eyes on a mosque before, and beyond a few sentences buried deep in a high school history text, I have never bothered to educate myself on the topic of Islam. I feel suddenly and painfully aware of this lack of knowledge concerning that predominantly Eastern faith, this fist-sized hole in my brain. It’s not as though I hold religion particularly dear to my heart— having shirked my Lutheran education for a more secular worldview— but I figure that if over a billion people practice a particular breed of faith, I ought to know something about it.

While I am no longer a practicing Christian, I think that my upbringing in the church passed on a wealth of information on how to connect with people of faith, and with people in general. Understanding faith is part of a greater context, a piece of knowledge that helps one solve problem of how people think and feel and move, a skill whose importance should not be lost in the twenty-first century shuffle. Considering that the world shrinks smaller by the hour, I think it would be intensely useful to have a tighter grasp on less “mainstream American” topics than I currently do.

Middle class America has provided my cultural bread and butter for all 22 years of my life, and it’s starting to get stale. I find my inability to push cultural boundaries both peculiar and a touch disheartening. If I had been born in New York City instead of in Upstate New York, would I be less afraid to just hop on a plane and go somewhere new?

To be frank, I do not believe RIT has at all broadened my horizons in a societal sense. Henrietta bears an uncanny resemblance to Clifton Park, and, besides the notable upgrade to Wegmans from Price Chopper, my everyday life has not been altered in some fundamental way as a result of my residence in this region. I have come to softly regret this aspect of my college experience, with the understanding that come graduation, I will still have plenty of time to learn.