"We've become a nation of indoor cats, he'd said. A nation of doubters, worriers, overthinkers. Thank God these weren't the kind of Americans who settled this country. They were a different breed! They crossed the country in wagons with wooden wheels! People croaked along the way, and they barely stopped. Back then, you buried your dead and kept moving."
Saudia Arabia provides such a sharp contrast to the luxury and liberty of America, that Alan necessarily must confront his cultural prejudice. He questions how his identity has been shaped by being American, a thing he has previously taken for granted. Perhaps he's become too tame for his surroundings, too weak to persevere his marriage. He takes advantage of the trip to accomplish some redefinition of his goals, identity, and success.
"Maybe he was more than the sum of his broken parts."
Alan feels completely worthless during this trip. He's reeling from a series of unfortunate changes -- divorce, losing an important contract at his last job, disappointing performance on his first few days in Saudi Arabia, the disappointment of his daughter, the disturbing lump on his back, middle age, etc. He struggles to find his center abroad, having recently lost so much of what he considered grounding in his life an identity. By placing himself in such an unfamiliar environment, he begins to consider what lies beneath the surface of his own disappointment.
"People don't like to be kept away form what they want. Especially when it appears within their reach. It makes one doubly angry."
Alan feels especially frustrated on this trip because he feels so limited in his performance. Given different circumstances he's certain he would have been successful, hence the frustration. He's painfully conscious of his limitations and how he's being perceived by those around him.
"Kit, you know the key to relating to your parents now? It's mercy. Children, when they become teenagers and then young adults, grow unforgiving. anything but perfection is pathos. Children are judgmental on an Old Testament level. All errors are unforgivable, as if a contract of perfection has been broken. But what if one's parents are granted the same mercy, the same empathy as other humans? Children need more Jesus in them."
Alan demonstrates incredible self-awareness in his communication with his daughter. He respects her anger, knowing he probably deserves it, but he also recognizes that she's indulging a childish grudge against him for leaving her mother. She could not control her parents' relationship, so she blames them for not controlling it better themselves. Alan recognizes in her criticism a simultaneous justice and denial. She's in pain, so he gives her the gift of honesty, without attempting to paint himself in a better light.
