"On ne saurait faire une omelette sans casser des oeufs"

^Could you crack this little egg?^

I found reading and trying to understand the story of Goethe's Faust simultaneously easy and mind-blowingly difficult. Now there's a paradox...
Easy in the sense that once I got the gist of the story, the underlying tragic tale, I could start to apply Faustian principles to almost anything - the USA arming the mujaheddin in Afghanistan to defeat the Soviets, the harnessing of the power of the atom and even the use of thalidomide. My head wouldn't stop spinning.
What is difficult, is comprehending the possibilities for this tragedy to repeat itself for all of eternity. As long as humankind push progress and development so the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. How do we, should we, put an end to progress?! Will we all just stop and think: "Right that's enough, let's live like 21st century Amish"? Doubt it.

So, as I'm feeling festive - I think Faust just pissed on my Christmas tree.

I started to think of my own experiences of the tragedy of development, and thought back to a little holiday I had in Laos in 2007...

My country has destroyed almost everything that is old and traditional about it. My country has progressed and I am 100% the product of its capitalist-consumerist ideals. However, the Hmong people of Laos, those whom I went to visit on my holiday, are tribal. They have been since the very beginning of their existence. I immediately wanted to experience their way of life - to love them for their naivety and simplicity, they were my Gretchen. However, just like Gretchen, a restlessness has been awoken in the tribe, they are curious about the outside. Some have started to leave. Some have started to come back and with them they bring the marvels of the modern world - washing powder to be exact.

Oh how the chief loves his washing powder!
His clothes get so pure
Oh how the chief loves his washing powder!
He'll soon be no more

You see, the tribe share one rainwater pond. Everyone and everything in the whole village washes and drinks from this pond. There's no running supply. Every time the chief uses his powder he pollutes the water, slowly poisoning his whole society with fairy colour-care and inadvertently killing innocent little Laos babies.

I wish we had never been to the village. In our desire to experience, to be nostalgic almost, we awoke the beast within. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In the village's desire to please us, in its awakening to 'progress', in its willingness to change it will ultimately consume itself. In our 'love' for the tribe and 1000s like it we have condemned them to a rapid death.

But what's that I hear? A little whisper behind my left ear? Don't worry Kelly, they're not the first and they won't be the last. Muwahahahahaha!

(Title quote from Maximilian Robespierre, 1790)