Seeing the Overview
Once Upon a Yugoslavia describes my process of rethinking my good American life. What really constitutes a “good life”? What is “quality of life,” and what is a “better life”?
An overwhelming urge to uncover life’s whys and wherefores has impassioned me since childhood, propelling me increasingly onward and inward. At first my quest for the aim of life was instinctual and but dimly felt. Eventually the vague spiritual pursuit became a conscious adventure of enlightening discovery.
My search for life’s deepest answers has situated me, for longer or shorter stays, in diverse parts of my native America, in Europe, and in Asia. The many visas and stamps in my passports to the contrary, by and by I learned: the ultimate answers are secreted in only one place, and we need not leave home to reclaim them. Unless we are born into a family that kindles our spiritual spark from our earliest breaths, the journey leading us to know our true nature will span many a sunrise.
In my case, at a certain point I had to find a personal balance within the unbalanced value system defining success and happiness in my homeland. I am full of wonder, gratitude, and humility that my ever-continuing odyssey guided me to a pot of gold most priceless: inner experience of life’s nonmaterial purpose.
Once Upon a Yugoslavia relates an initial, preparatory stage of my ripening process from I to We to Thee-awareness. In a nutshell, and narrated in the present tense reflecting the immediacy of my Yugoslav experience to this day:
Nearing the completion of my master’s degree studies in communication at Stanford University in 1968, I accept a summer writing job at a renowned film studio in socialist Yugoslavia—Zagreb Film by name, commonly dubbed “the Studio.”1 I have no particular interest in alternatives to the capitalist system but I am interested in people, and how peoples of other societies and cultures live. Yugoslavia will let me observe a society based on aspirations quite different from my traditional American ideals and ambitions.
Working and residing in Zagreb, in Croatia, a republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, will serve as a living textbook for a uniquely tailored postgraduate summer course: “Daily Life in a Developing Second World Country: Tito’s Yugoslavia.”
Once in Zagreb, I am simultaneously thrown into a 24/7 seminar foreign to the curriculum of any school I attended: “Beyond Material Awareness: Living Our Life in Relation to Attaining True Success in this World.”
Up until my stay in Zagreb, I am immersed in the individualistic American Way of life and lack genuine understanding of myself. My challenging engagement with Yugoslav society forces me to recognize the narrow confines of my thinking.
Once Upon a Yugoslavia conveys my thoughts, feelings, and experiences while I am undergoing, unbeknownst to me, a de-education and re-education that is opening my mind and heart for a deeper and wider perspective.
Yu-go-slave-ia, as I call the country following local usage, compels me to spot the lessons presented every day for my inner maturation. I unlearn, while relearning, some basic principles needed to live an aware, content, and fulfilling existence. My I-centered self receives twentieth-century lessons in what I trust can finally become the twenty-first century’s We-focused lifestyle.
The transformation described in these pages begins in the past. Yet the narration also applies to the present as well as the future. My individual journey reflects changes I consider inevitable on our collective path to a humane tomorrow. The future of our global community depends on sharing, and sharing motivates my pen. Perhaps my mind-and-heart awakening discoveries will give readers a sense of “Aha, yes, of course!”
Once Upon a Yugoslavia is part of my projected series of books on the stages of personal transformation linked to a larger transformation. It speaks to the call of our times—trying times calling us to help effect a new way of living together on this planet for the good of all. Once Upon a Yugoslavia is one action and offering for a better world.
Surya Green
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1 Certain terms in this book are capitalized even where the lower case might be grammatically sufficient—to acknowledge, for example, the prominent role of the Studio in Yugoslavia’s film industry, the Godlike dominance of the Party over Yugoslavia and the rest of the Eastern Bloc, or the central role of Sun and Earth in all our lives.