After about a month of being so busy that I often didn’t have time to do little things like pluck my eyebrows or staple my homework papers together, I finally feel like things are slowing down a bit. It may not be for long but for now I’m enjoying the extra time to think and meditate.
I meditate best when I’m jogging and listening to cheesy pop songs, and today while I was jogging I realized something that I think is pretty exciting but it may cause me to drop out of school soon. I’m just kidding really but you’ll see what I mean.
The more college classes I take, especially anthropology and development studies classes, the more I realize that nothing in life is certain. Everything is relative and the good-versus-bad thing doesn’t exist. For example, electricity is pretty awesome and I don’t think anyone would argue that. But if electricity is introduced into a rural village by an electrical company that is so interested in making a profit that it neglects to make sure that its electrical system is environmentally friendly and sustainable, then the village may suffer from pollution and disease, drought, and famine. A murderer sucks but if the murderer is so poor he never went to school and he was raised by an abusive, alcoholic parent, then can we really blame the murderer for been screwed up? And if we choose to blame his government for not providing him with free education and not protecting him from his parents, then we must also blame those who elected the government. But what if the people who voted were brainwashed by the media? I could keep going but instead I’ll go onto a more exciting example…pimples! Pimples are gross, pussy, painful, and most of all ugly. But at least for me pimples are a great reminder that I should take care of myself better and eat less junk. Whenever I see a ragging pimple party getting started on my face, I reassess my health, try to get more sleep, and try to eat less chocolate, coffee, and sweets.
So I should get to the point. The fact that life is relative, complicated, and far from black and white makes me depressed sometimes. I get depressed because it makes me feel like anything I do to try to help humanity and make the world better will not make much of a difference it the large scheme of things. In fact, not only could my efforts not change much but they could also be harmful. I could spend eight years studying to become a doctor but end up prescribing a dangerous medication unnecessarily because I was misinformed about its effectiveness and the severity of its side affects. Or I could start a famine-relief non-profit organization but end up giving so much food to people that they become dependent on my organization and, generations down the line, forget how to produce their own food.
Now I realize that there is no need to ever be depressed! What all this means is that all I can do is try my best and focus on the one thing I know will always produce positive results: loving people. I don’t need to go to school to know how to love and I don’t even need to exert much effort. This is an example of how sometimes things get so complicated that they go back to being simple.
a, hiking the devil’s home, climbing through windows, and jumping onto moving trains. So on their second morning together they all slept until quite late. When they finally woke up, Debbie drove them yet again to East Africa! But this time, they went to Congo instead of Burundi, and visited a nice woman and her two incredibly beautiful children. While Apu and GSteezie spoke to the mother in a mix of Kiswahili, French, and English, Julia Gulia and Debbie took the children outside, and they prophesied that someday Rachel, the little baby girl, would be Miss Universe because she was already, without a doubt, the cutest baby in the world. They all sang, prayed, and ate corn together, but soon it was time to go.
that bridge into the lake beneath it, and now she had friends to accompany her. But looking down at the lake from the bridge, she and her three friends were overcome by fear. Yet somehow Apu, GSteezie, and Debbie finally managed to climb over the railing and stand at the edge and got ready to jump. A minute passed and they still hadn’t jumped…then another went by…then five more…and then after almost twenty minutes of painful anticipation Gsteezie jumped off followed immediately by Apu. Everyone watching cheered! Debbie meant to jump off too but somehow couldn’t find the courage, and even after almost an hour of trying, with kind and encouraging words from her friends and from strangers passing by, she still couldn’t do it. Though she felt a bit sad, she was happy for GSteezie and Apu, and she knows that someday, when the time is right, she will jump.
Vermont. They had a great time but soon it became late and only Julia Gulia, Apu, GSteezie, and Debbie were up, wondering what to do on their last night together. The moon was full and the air was fresh so they couldn’t think of anything better to than to go to the beach and sit by a fire. Late into the night and early morning, the four friends sat around a small fire having deep conversations (and some shallow ones too), admiring the moonlight, eating leftover pizza, and, most of all, enjoying each other’s company.
tiful beach at sunset. As she ran her fingers through the sand and admired the mountains across the ocean-like lake she thought to herself, “I must invite some of my friends to visit me. I must share this beauty with them.” So she made a few phone calls, sent a few facebook messages, and then awaited the special day when her friends Julia Gulia, Apu, and GSteezie would join her on that very beach. Little did she know that she was about to embark one of her life’s craziest adventures.
untain they climbed is called Mt. Philo and it is home to the most evil being in the universe- the devil himself! It is beautiful from the outside but inside lives the spirit of the devil, which comes out every night to sit on its chair on the side of the mountain facing the lake. The four friends sat of his chair- a huge rock formation- and although a bit scared, they felt safe in each other’s company and in the company of forest’s beautiful trees and animals. Had they paid a little more attention, however, they would have noticed that it was the devil and not a wasp that bit Julia Gulia on the wrist- a bite so painful that the poor Julia Gulia feared her end was near. Thankfully she was wrong and did not die.
about to ring the doorbell to wake up Debbie’s mom and everyone, of course, was fearing the scolding they would get for waking Debbie’s mom at such an unimaginable hour, GSteezie yelled, “Stop!” Then without much thought he climbed onto the porch railing, jumped on the roof, crawled to Debbie’s bedroom window, and snuk into the house. Everyone cheered and let out a sigh of relief for not having to wake up Debbie’s mom. Their adventures weren’t over yet, however, because on their way to the lake to say prayers, they rode on a rickshaw (bike taxi), jumped onto a moving train, peed in bushes, and sang songs so loud that anyone could hear (if everyone had been awake, that is).
