This year's theme.

So show your love for the foreigners, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:19

- from an image in a booklet about the Angel Island Immigration Station

I have a lot of stray thoughts about today, but not too much really cohesive at the moment. Angel Island Trip + 1040 movie, with some AI hw and good fried chicken + waffles in between. I also discovered that I like grits.

I think something that struck me today was Jaeson Ma's statement about the West passing the baton of Christianity to the East. Not entirely sure what I think of it, but it kinda reminded me of a recurring theme that I've been seeing this year - about how mainstream American Christianity is too individualistic. Or rather, characteristic of a society that prioritizes individuals over the community. The latter of which also was a recurring theme in both the debates about why our state/economy is going downhill and the descriptions in People's History of the US about the last few decades.

Just look at the victims of the Angel Island Immigration Station. These were people who were detained for indefinite periods because they could possibly be deemed a threat to the welfare of American society. And the methods used to make sure that they could be detained oftentimes seemed more like the authorities were just looking for loopholes and weak excuses in the law, even though only 5% of the immigrants actually got deported. If anything, it just seemed like a waste of resources to hold these people back for so long.

I think the one thing I've been learning this past year is that being selfish sucks. (which is kinda obvious.) But it's a lot more complicated to deal with selfishness that manifests itself throughout our society, that finds itself reflected in our politics and in how we choose to live out our lives. It makes me keep second guessing whether or not I want to go into industry and just become another cog in the wheel, or if I should try looking for something a bit more... seeking the welfare of the city-ish? (I dunno how else to word this.)

And at the end of the day, religious or not, we're still selfish people. But I'm getting rather tired of being pessimistic about that now, considering the fact that there are people out there actually trying to live out the selfless life. It'd be nice to become one of them.