A discussion, a critique

I am trying to get my head around what it would be like to be passionate about things that come from one's own heritage, that have centuries of unbroken tradition. How would it be possible to be passionate about, and to spend a great deal of one's emotional and mental energy on traditions of one's own ancestors, and take great pride in them?

I feel nearly heritageless. I consider my heritage roughly Anglo-Saxon, but it really is a great percentage Celtic, and there is a big difference. The Anglo part has had more of a direct impact on my own life, I believe. All I know about the Celtic heritage is fiddling and ceilidhs and step dancing. That is all pretty cool, and I did love the culture in Ireland. It was the first place I ever went that didn't feel like a vacuum. But my connection to it is tenuous - it's more of a made up or forced connection. I discovered this stuff on my own, in my 20s. It held my interest for a short period of time.

I consider my heritage much more to be traditions of North America. I've heard the blues all my life. My mom even hummed or sang in a bluesy style. That's been around me since childhood. That and church hymns. Of course I knew nothing about the history of blues until I got older, but that's kind of similar to kids here with flamenco. It's in their blood though they may not know its history or much about the gitano community.

Bluegrass came to me later, but it feels like part of me. The only other thing would be Black Gospel, or hymns of the deep south like Sacred Harp. I don't want to live in North America again without regaining a connection with some of this. The connections are more tenuous in Canada, I feel.

I've always been an outsider with pop, "alternative" (cooler, more intellectual form of pop) music and culture. I couldn't care less about music coming out of my culture. My immediate culture (what's around me in Vancouver) feels like a vacuum to me: it is cynical, reactionary and has little in and of itself. It can only pass comment on other things, usually coolly criticizing them. I would rather be wrong, naive, simple minded: I need something with a soul.

It is a paradox. Some people don't realise how positive the gains are that North America has made in culture and breaking traditions. Faced with married men feeling bound to tradition and seeking affairs on the side, I have great pride and thanks for the freedom that happened in the 60s. Seeing some remaining macho attitudes here, I am extremely happy I have been spared dealing with men that could order me around. It is invaluable that I can choose to follow what is truly right for me, and to look inside myself or around me for other options, in order to find relief from negative behaviour patterns in my family. This is what my culture has made possible, and it seems people here are only starting to do that.