A fine mess of contradictions

Insanely Overemotionally Involved

Whenever I go grocery shopping I feel ill. Today was no exception. I love food, don't get me wrong but there is something so bizarre about the plethora of selection we have that it is scary. I was reading an article for my International Reporting class (yay I got in finally!) and I remembered why I feel so panicked all the time. Because everything I have is so pointless. Not pointless necessarily, but excessive compared to what others have and what I actually need. When I fill my cart with the vast array of cereals, vegetables, and organic products that I have come to love so much I feel strange.

The article I read was discussing a woman who grew up in Sudan and fled to Ethiopia during the civil war. She and her children drank from dirty mud puddles and ate whatever they could find. Her first experience at a grocery store in Canada must have been bizarre.

I guess I felt this way when I got home from Africa- why do we have all this when people all over the world have nothing? And yet I consume more than the average person. I feel overwhelmed and panicked and just buy and buy to make myself feel like I have some sort of control over the world, my life and myself. But it all means nothing.

There is a passage in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brother's Karamazov that struck me the moment I read it and I will never forget it.

"For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance."- The Grand Inquisitor

I guess this kind of describes my panic. As I live every day as something I don't think I am. I read all of these articles and they touch me more than they should. Or maybe that is the whole point. I feel stunted, like I need to get out there and help and report and give. That is kind of why the more I read I know that I want the responsibility of a journalist- to tell the world about the stories they cannot see with their own eyes, to let them know that people are starving, women are being raped, people are losing their families, but I worry that they won't do anything. Most people don't. And then it would all be in vain.

I watched Farenheit 9/11 the other day and Michael Moore was filming a woman in front of the White House whose son had died in the war in Iraq. She was sobbing so hard that she doubled over. All I wanted was for the camera man to set down the camera and go and hug her and help her with her grief. I'm not sure I can be that person who films, records and watches as the world falls apart. That maybe I need to work for an NGO, move somewhere and do something about the way I feel, even if it only feels like a small impact.

People may pay more attention to the passing of someone like Princess Diana, but Mother Theresa should have had a far greater impact. She is a role model. She actually lived in the slums and cared for those who had nothing. And I'm coming to realize that is so much more important.

And our lives of contradictions continues.

posted by Kate @ 1:47 PM