Joining The Fight
One of the few good things about Phoenix is that the airport has free Wi-Fi, which I'm currently making good use of as I wait for my flight this morning back to San Jose. I had a fun weekend here with Ladan, and, as usual, am saddened to return home alone again.
Over the weekend I found out that I'm to go to DC on Wednesday for a meeting on Thursday. As I've done the past few times, I'll extend the trip through the weekend and thereby have time to catch up with friends in the area. When I return next Sunday, I'll have three days to prepare for a Christmas trip to Albany with Ladan. We'll be flying into Boston, driving to Albany, staying for five days, then driving back to Boston and returning home on the 28th. Then on January 25th, Ladan's parents arrive from Iran for a two-and-a-half month stay with her in Phoenix, which I'm excited about but frustrated that I won't be able to see them as much as I'd like.
The past few months have been just insane; I've been traveling about 75% of the weekends in the past three months: DC, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Denver, Nicaragua. I love traveling, and I'm racking up the air miles, but I feel like I've had little time to focus on The Main Issue - what I'm doing with my life.
Whereas over the past few weeks I was thinking I was headed more in the AI direction, I'm now back to the International Relations-ish line of thinking: one of the options I've been considering is getting a degree in that field when we move back to DC in about six months, as there are a plethora of good schools to choose from in the area. Ladan and I went to see Blood Diamond last night, an intensely disturbing film about the human cost underlying the diamond industry. I'd read about the industry before - the strife in the African countries where the diamonds are mined, the artificial short supply created by the diamond companies hoarding the available supply, the ridiculous overpricing of retail diamonds, the entire sickening culture of diamond obsession. If the numbers in the movie were accurate, it's tough to pinpoint the extent of the problem: two-thirds of the buyers come from the US, but only 15% of the diamond supply are estimated to be "conflict diamonds" - originating from countries or regions that are in "conflict" over the diamond mines. But clearly, this is a huge issue that needs to be addressed.
After seeing that movie - as seeing that type of movie always does - I felt determined to somehow "get involved", i.e. fight the bad guys, so to speak. It's one thing to be ignorant of what's going on the world outside your window; it's entirely another to be aware of it and decide to do nothing. There are so many things worth fighting for - how can I possibly be content to not fight for any?
Of course, the fact that I'm even considering getting somehow involved immediately makes me an outcast in places like Phoenix. Looking around my gate waiting area here at the airport, the fact that I'm not reading the Sports section of the paper, talking about yesterday's Big Games, doing a Sudoku puzzle or watching the drivel offered on the Fox News / CNN showing on all the big TVs - I clearly don't fit in here.
And thank for the FSM for that.
Over the weekend I found out that I'm to go to DC on Wednesday for a meeting on Thursday. As I've done the past few times, I'll extend the trip through the weekend and thereby have time to catch up with friends in the area. When I return next Sunday, I'll have three days to prepare for a Christmas trip to Albany with Ladan. We'll be flying into Boston, driving to Albany, staying for five days, then driving back to Boston and returning home on the 28th. Then on January 25th, Ladan's parents arrive from Iran for a two-and-a-half month stay with her in Phoenix, which I'm excited about but frustrated that I won't be able to see them as much as I'd like.
The past few months have been just insane; I've been traveling about 75% of the weekends in the past three months: DC, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Denver, Nicaragua. I love traveling, and I'm racking up the air miles, but I feel like I've had little time to focus on The Main Issue - what I'm doing with my life.
Whereas over the past few weeks I was thinking I was headed more in the AI direction, I'm now back to the International Relations-ish line of thinking: one of the options I've been considering is getting a degree in that field when we move back to DC in about six months, as there are a plethora of good schools to choose from in the area. Ladan and I went to see Blood Diamond last night, an intensely disturbing film about the human cost underlying the diamond industry. I'd read about the industry before - the strife in the African countries where the diamonds are mined, the artificial short supply created by the diamond companies hoarding the available supply, the ridiculous overpricing of retail diamonds, the entire sickening culture of diamond obsession. If the numbers in the movie were accurate, it's tough to pinpoint the extent of the problem: two-thirds of the buyers come from the US, but only 15% of the diamond supply are estimated to be "conflict diamonds" - originating from countries or regions that are in "conflict" over the diamond mines. But clearly, this is a huge issue that needs to be addressed.
After seeing that movie - as seeing that type of movie always does - I felt determined to somehow "get involved", i.e. fight the bad guys, so to speak. It's one thing to be ignorant of what's going on the world outside your window; it's entirely another to be aware of it and decide to do nothing. There are so many things worth fighting for - how can I possibly be content to not fight for any?
Of course, the fact that I'm even considering getting somehow involved immediately makes me an outcast in places like Phoenix. Looking around my gate waiting area here at the airport, the fact that I'm not reading the Sports section of the paper, talking about yesterday's Big Games, doing a Sudoku puzzle or watching the drivel offered on the Fox News / CNN showing on all the big TVs - I clearly don't fit in here.
And thank for the FSM for that.
posted by GregP at 5:50 AM
2 Comments:
And that is the question, isn't it? What exactly do you hope to achieve by getting involved? Realistically, there's no reason to get involved if you don't on some level believe that what you're doing will change something. But you're right, thinking you can single-handedly "solve" an issue or fundamentally change the world is all but impossible.
That's why I think it's best to focus on one particular issue; if each person who gets involved does this, we can tackle all of these issues.
But I think that if I were to really adopt the mentality that you described, I might lose enthusiasm for the fight. I've got to believe that the man can be beaten, at least to SOME extent.
A place to start, when you decide to buy one:
http://idealbite.com/tiplibrary/tip.php?tip=20061208&title=GCS:_A_Brighter,_Better_Bling_-_Brilliant_Earth
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