Hi - I'm going to write short, raw / unedited (and possibly incomplete) thoughts here as they relate to my experience in Africa.
...
I'm writing to reflect, learn, change and possibly inspire. Though inspiring is aspirational. I'm not writing to live in the past as I think many are inclined to do after an incredible experience.
This is far different than the man downstairs who runs the Laundromat. He wears John Lennon glasses and John Lennon clothes. His accessories are stuck in the past – and so is the music blaring from his store. Everything he talks about is in the context of the past. He starts sentences with "Back then…", "It used to be that…", "Life was better when…." This is a man stuck in the past that hasn't even been able to move on. He lives with a chip on his shoulder on behalf of a generation decades gone.
....
1. We are all rich. I know it doesn't always feel like it, particularly during a recession. But we all live in luxury, just to varying degrees. If you have shoes, have access to electricity and clean water, access to health care and education then you're pretty well off.
2. We are all poor. We all have a longing for something - comfort, home, familiarity, excitement...something fulfilling. And we've impoverished our own souls by our lives of luxury. We've all formed our own golden calf and worshiped at its feet. Our lives of comfort and status seeking (we all do it even if you think you don't), hasn't masked the emptiness within, but its only deepened it and exposed it. We've sold our souls more than we'd like to admit.
No comments:
Post a Comment