Goodbye Old...Hello NEW Orleans!

"Most people seek after what they do not possess and are thus enslaved by the very things they want to acquire." -Anwar El-Sadat

In today’s society, wealth seems to have taken top priority. Day after day, the importance of class standing and material goods is reinforced through magazines, television show such as “The Fabulous Life of the Rich and Famous,” and constant media coverage of who is wearing what and what is in and what is out.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna emphasizes the importance of “freedom from hate and vanity” (125), however it seems these are qualities that have become extremely prevalent today. How is it that our world has become so consumed with these superficial ideas and need for material goods?

The superficiality of our present world is devastating. During my trip to New Orleans over Christmas break, I was reminded of how little some people have. Since Katrina hit the historic and fascinating city, things have been remarkably different. I spent nine years of my life as a New Orleans resident and became extremely familiar with the city. Since leaving in 2000, I had yet to return to New Orleans. I remembered New Orleans as being like every other city, clean, not extremely safe but having nice areas, and a decent place to live. After arriving in the airport my family and I went to rent a car. The minute we opened the door, the smell of weed bombarded our nostrils. My mom looked down and found bits of weed wedged between the seat and the door. Only in New Orleans would this happen. We got a new car and proceeded to drive through the city. I was astonished by the filth and dirt that seemed to cover every square inch of land. I saw homeless men and women on corner after corner and each business seemed more run down than the next. It was not at all how I had remembered it.

Our second day in town, we drove through the ninth ward where the majority of the destruction had taken place. I cannot begin to describe the sadness that filled my heart as we explored street after street of abandoned homes. Each home was marked with an “X,” the top quadrant having the date it was searched written in it, the left quadrant having the group that searched it written in it, and the bottom quadrant having the number of dead people found in the house written in it. We spent about two hours cruising through the area viewing the wreckage. It was heartbreaking, to say the least, to see the people on the streets and the houses with nothing to them but the frame. While looking at all of this, I realized how pathetic our materialism and superficiality really is. These people would be grateful to have a something to eat for dinner while we’re worrying about which new pair of designer jeans we will get for Christmas.

Many people are “caught in the toils of a hundred vain hopes, the slaves of passion and of wrath, they accumulate hoards of unjust wealth,” (127) thinking it will be their path to happiness. They soon realized that there is more to happiness than money. Despite the bad hand people in New Orleans have been dealt, it does not stop them from tap dancing on a corner for a couple of bucks or livening the city with their upbeat and soulful jazz music. I think every single person could learn a lot from a trip to New Orleans and a look at what hope during hard times really is.