Society in the U.S. says that we become adults at age 18 or 21, depending on whether you want to drink a beer or fight for your country. Car insurance rates for men drop once they turn 25. A study by the National Institutes of Health found that changes in maturity levels between the ages of 7 and 30 resemble the growth curves for height and head circumference. That is, big changes.
I wonder if we can learn about nations from actuaries and neuroscientists. They say that the brain is always capable of changing—that it’s a work in progress—and that new experiences can actually create circuitry that trumps past experience. If brains take 30 years to emerge, surely democracies do, too.
The Republic of Armenia will soon celebrate 20 years of independence. During the days following Sept. 21, 1991, Armenians around the world expressed immense optimism for their homeland. When you know how great something can be, it defines your hopes for the future.
“Hope has two beautiful daughters,” St. Augustine wrote. “Their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.” And this has been the dilemma of hope in Armenia.
Over the years, I’ve spent considerable time with Armenians from around the world on their maiden voyages back home. Nearly all of them arrive with high expectations for the place described with utmost reverence by their grandparents and the likes of young poet Lord Byron. Once there, their reactions range from euphoria to anger.
The euphoric are grateful to be surrounded by their people, to be in a place that is imperfect, but which they can call their own. Those who are angry resent the chasm between what they have been told and what they see. The stories they’ve heard are not false; no one will argue about the intelligence, resilience, and industriousness of the Armenian people. But some of the narrative has been reduced or altered as in a game of “telephone.” And much has not taken into account Armenia’s relative youth as a republic.
My dad once referenced Thomas Wolfe’s book “You can’t go home again” when we were talking about those who leave the family farm in rural North Dakota and try to return years later. Of course the difference between going home after 10 years versus 100 years is tremendous, but the title could be regarded as a friendly warning to carefully manage one’s expectations.
If you give credence to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, it would appear that many Armenians believe there is a scarcity of courage in the country. But in my view that’s not what’s lacking. I’ve heard countless Armenians selflessly remark, “Vochinch, togh sens el mna im hamar, bayc lav lini yerexanners hamar” (Nevermind, let it stay like this for me, but be better for my children). Believing that it can and must be better is an important part of courage. It is, to use consultant-speak, operationalizing it that’s tricky.
Years ago, while visiting a class at Manana Youth Center, I witnessed another form of courage. “How can we improve our country?” the founder and president, Rouzan Baghdasaryan, asked the kids. The chorus of naysayers responded with typical excuses like “Pogh chunenq, ban chenq karogh anel” (We don’t have any money, so we can’t do anything) and “Karavarutyun chenq, inch karogh enq anel?” (We’re not the government, what can we do?) “No, I don’t want to hear excuses. What can you do starting right now?” she demanded.
Her challenge had a jarring effect on the aspiring journalists. Forced out of their inherited victim mentality, they filled a large piece of paper on the wall with their ideas. They were not ideas assigned to some faceless entity or government official. They were ideas that demonstrated a new sense of empowerment and responsibility. They sat up straighter, they focused their minds, they raised their expectations of themselves. And, through it all, they gave new meaning to hope.
Kristi Rendahl
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Kristi Jan:
I had never heard of St. Augustine’s writing about Hope’s two daughters. Thank you for this enlightening article.
Your continued involvement with Armenia and your positive attitude are, to me, Anger’s and Courage’s grandmother.
People who have expectation usually get disappointed and those who have desires get satisfied. Those who expect things from Homeland will get illusions shuttered and those who have desire to see Homeland, desire to help will be happy.
You noted the most annoying feature when people act as victims and find excuses not to do anything rather than find something to do. I beleive even Bible said that those who do nothing because they can only do little can not be more wrong.