2005-03-07 - 6:46 p.m.
I just got back from Chicago where I watched Tiffany perform for the first time. This was the conclusion of a course of therapy through which I have been going for over a year and a half now - and I did it. It was hard, it was a bit painful, and it was above all humbling to see just how good of a dancer she is - but I did it. I expected to come back from Chicago happy, proud and ready to move forward - instead, I'm in a bit of a daze.
This weekend, Tiffany and I spent quite a bit of time talking about the next phase of our lives - where do we go from here. Tiffany wants to stay and work for a year, then go to Africa and do her part to help those in need - and I want to go right now. I don't mean at the end of the year, or at the end of the summer - I want to leave right now.
What's the difference between me and a 26 year old born into a poor family in a starving village in Africa? Here I am, educated at some of finest schools the world has to offer, working a job which enables me to afford a very comfortable lifestyle - my biggest worry everyday is whether or not my double tours are going to look good that night at ballet. I never have to worry about not having enough to eat, about not having clothes to wear or a roof over my head. My worst case scenario is that I lose everything and go home to live with my equally fortunate parents. So what's the difference between us? It has nothing to do with intelligence or work-ethic - it has nothing to do with anything except the luck of the draw. I was born here, and he was born there. Because of that simple fact, his entire life will be different - more difficult and more than likely, shorter. In order to accomplish the lifestyle which I have, he would have to work infinitely harder. It's just not fair.
I realize that life is not fair, but I think the goal of society as a whole should be to make life as fair as possible. Shouldn't everyone be given a fair chance? I'm not suggesting that we should give everyone some sort of starter kit at birth and let them loose to do what they will - there will always be rich and poor...but shouldn't the poorest person in the poorest nation be allowed the same chance of survival as the richest of the rich? I think so, but that's not the case It is one of the most bastardly facts of civilization as a whole - we draw imaginary lines on pieces of paper and grant different sets of privileges based on which side of the line people happen to live. Can you imagine how frustrated it makes me that the death of ten soldiers in Iraq makes national news, while the death of ten thousand Iraqi citizens goes unreported! And here I am, sitting behind a computer eight hours a day working on algorithms and data sets which might help us launch one more segment to our space station which orbits over a dying continent sixteen times a day. Good thing bodies can't be seen from space - we might start to give a damn.
I have been very effected by a friend who has recently decided to go back to grad school, deciding she doesn't like her job. I went through the gamut of emotions - anger that she was leaving when we were just getting to know each other, sadness that my time with her was now limited, and jealousy that she was getting out. The other day, she wrote in her journal about a friend of hers who impressed her by being able to shrug off the 9-5 materialistic life to which we have all become so accustomed, saying that she didn't think she could do that. I think it's time to find out if I can. Life isn't fair - and my 26 year old friend in Africa will never have the life that I have, but I figure the least I can do is devote my life to making sure his children inch one small step closer to the kind of fortune to which I have been privy since day one.
