The Shadow of the Sun
I leave for London tomorrow. I'm about to embark on what will be the biggest trip of my life up to this point and I thought I would take stock of my person and what's going on.
Africa. So much surrounding that continent. So much history, so much pain, injustice, racism, colonialism, uncertainty, rumour. But also so much pride, so much culture, resiliance, accomplishment in the face of extreme poverty.
One thing I can really say I've learned about myself in the past two or three years is that I have become more aware of my place in the world. Not necessarily what I'm going to do with it, just where I stand.
I feel extemely lucky and gracious to have been born in the United States of America. Not because I love what this country stands for so much, but because I have been afforded the opportunities that the much of the world's population knows nothing of.
North America holds something like 10% of the world's population, I may have that figure wrong, but in any case it's a small percentage. The life we have all lived and know is not the life that exists elsewhere. Not everyone, or even the majority, are that fortunate.
When I put in perspective the things I complain about, agonize over, things that have caused argumentes between friends and family; they seem childish. We make light of it in this country. "Eat the rest of your food, kids in Ethiopia or starving" Little things like that. I've done it many times before, I still slip up at times. But what I've come to realize is that my world is not the real world. My world is a world of privelage that most the world will never know.
We have been taught to believe in many instances that the world we live in is a civil one. We are a civil people. We have laws that protect us from violence, from starvation, from unfair practices, be it legal, medical or otherwise. We have a safety net. Even those who close their eyes, drop out of school, do nothing for themselves, they still can find some piece of salvation in a disability or welfare check. Western Civilization protecting its tired, hungry, wretched.
But the truth is this. I have now, at 19 years, far more than many adults will have in their entire lifetimes. People who toil their entire lives, day in and day out, just surviving. There is no safety net for these people. And when these people do fall, from the scourges of poverty, disease, and hunger, I wonder if they flail, if they ask why this has happened. I wonder if they even know a safety net exists.
And this is where we are at fault. I am sitting here now at a computer that holds the answers to a million and more questions I could ask. A car, a television, an education, cd's, vacations, doctors, books, food, anything I want. And what have I dont to really truly deserve what all I have? Well ladies and gentleman, I was born in the great USA with parents that had enough.
I guess what it comes down to is this. I was born into this world, raised a certain way, brought up in a certain culture, and I've been given the freedom to judge how I think the world works.
And frankly, I don't like it very much. The society I live in has a million great things. So many wonderful individuals, great things to see and taste, experiences abundant, great deeds done.
But many things wrong as well. High crime rates, drugs, rape, depression and mental diseases, wars, obesity. We have seen, and I have seen in my own family, the breakdown of the family and community. Our country is defined by division in many cases. Divisions between religious groups, governments, between races.
Our biggest pieces of news have been national security, putting up a huge wall for the mexicans to look at, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and Bush banning gay marriage. Sound good to you?
I'm passionate about all these things. But what bothers me the most is how little people know or choose to know about the rest of the world and how they live. Did you know that a first class ticket from New York to Tokyo costs $16 thousand dollars? There's a lot of money wasted in this world while people starve and die.
Sorry to be such a downer, but I just felt I needed to put myself in check before I left for Africa. Because this experience is going to open my eyes to the reality of all this, or I think it will. I've never seen true poverty. I've never seen someone dying or die from AIDS.
I want all these things. Not because they're uplifting, happy things. I want to see them because they're real. They happen and I want to know as much about what goes on as I can. That's it and that's all. See it, improve it, leave it a more experienced person.
See you all in a few months.
Africa. So much surrounding that continent. So much history, so much pain, injustice, racism, colonialism, uncertainty, rumour. But also so much pride, so much culture, resiliance, accomplishment in the face of extreme poverty.
One thing I can really say I've learned about myself in the past two or three years is that I have become more aware of my place in the world. Not necessarily what I'm going to do with it, just where I stand.
I feel extemely lucky and gracious to have been born in the United States of America. Not because I love what this country stands for so much, but because I have been afforded the opportunities that the much of the world's population knows nothing of.
North America holds something like 10% of the world's population, I may have that figure wrong, but in any case it's a small percentage. The life we have all lived and know is not the life that exists elsewhere. Not everyone, or even the majority, are that fortunate.
When I put in perspective the things I complain about, agonize over, things that have caused argumentes between friends and family; they seem childish. We make light of it in this country. "Eat the rest of your food, kids in Ethiopia or starving" Little things like that. I've done it many times before, I still slip up at times. But what I've come to realize is that my world is not the real world. My world is a world of privelage that most the world will never know.
We have been taught to believe in many instances that the world we live in is a civil one. We are a civil people. We have laws that protect us from violence, from starvation, from unfair practices, be it legal, medical or otherwise. We have a safety net. Even those who close their eyes, drop out of school, do nothing for themselves, they still can find some piece of salvation in a disability or welfare check. Western Civilization protecting its tired, hungry, wretched.
But the truth is this. I have now, at 19 years, far more than many adults will have in their entire lifetimes. People who toil their entire lives, day in and day out, just surviving. There is no safety net for these people. And when these people do fall, from the scourges of poverty, disease, and hunger, I wonder if they flail, if they ask why this has happened. I wonder if they even know a safety net exists.
And this is where we are at fault. I am sitting here now at a computer that holds the answers to a million and more questions I could ask. A car, a television, an education, cd's, vacations, doctors, books, food, anything I want. And what have I dont to really truly deserve what all I have? Well ladies and gentleman, I was born in the great USA with parents that had enough.
I guess what it comes down to is this. I was born into this world, raised a certain way, brought up in a certain culture, and I've been given the freedom to judge how I think the world works.
And frankly, I don't like it very much. The society I live in has a million great things. So many wonderful individuals, great things to see and taste, experiences abundant, great deeds done.
But many things wrong as well. High crime rates, drugs, rape, depression and mental diseases, wars, obesity. We have seen, and I have seen in my own family, the breakdown of the family and community. Our country is defined by division in many cases. Divisions between religious groups, governments, between races.
Our biggest pieces of news have been national security, putting up a huge wall for the mexicans to look at, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and Bush banning gay marriage. Sound good to you?
I'm passionate about all these things. But what bothers me the most is how little people know or choose to know about the rest of the world and how they live. Did you know that a first class ticket from New York to Tokyo costs $16 thousand dollars? There's a lot of money wasted in this world while people starve and die.
Sorry to be such a downer, but I just felt I needed to put myself in check before I left for Africa. Because this experience is going to open my eyes to the reality of all this, or I think it will. I've never seen true poverty. I've never seen someone dying or die from AIDS.
I want all these things. Not because they're uplifting, happy things. I want to see them because they're real. They happen and I want to know as much about what goes on as I can. That's it and that's all. See it, improve it, leave it a more experienced person.
See you all in a few months.