Viva La Capitalism!
Oct. 12th, 2001 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judecorpI am disheartened. There's no icon for that, I'm sure, but I am. I'll tell you why.
I took a lovely walk this morning to Lincoln Tower to drop off my contract (YAY!). Apparently, there's a big Gap/Limited clearance sale going on at the Drake Union (which is across the street from Lincoln Tower). Underclass wimmin were streaming out of there in twos and threes with big Gap bags full of recently acquired purchases.
I just stood there, watching them wander away with their arms laden with purchases. Is /this/ what's important? Here I am, spending nights wondering how I would be with/talk to the ones I love if it came to that, wondering how I would get to my Yang, etc. I wonder about violence, and when we will break the cycle of anger and suffering and hurt. I wonder about racial profiling, and hate crimes. I spent half of yesterday afternoon at a meeting with a girl from Hillel so we can co-sponsor an anti-hate-crime rally thinger in memory of Kristallnacht. The Gap was the furthest thing from my mind.
I just felt so deflated. OSU is such an apathetic community as it is (rallies get 30-40 people in a university of 50,000 students)... but this? Le heaving sigh. I am Jack's Fanatic Global Empathy.
So on the long walk back to the Union, past the Biological Sciences building, past Mirror Lake, past the Amphitheatre (you are so totally taking this walk with me, Princess, it's lovely and when it's grey and blustery it is so very you), and toward work, I stopped at each and every worm I saw. Each little worm stretching across wet pavement, seeking moisture, seeking a new place to dig... I picked them up and gently rested them on the grass. So the hoardes couldn't stomp them. With their bicycles and their apathy and their double-wide shopping bags.
When I was seven, I was too sensitive. When I was twelve, I was an overreacter. When I was seventeen, I was in tune. When I was eighteen, I was empathic. When I was twenty, I was aware. I'm nearly twenty-six. Am I all of these things? Any of these things? They call me naive, and foolish, and cowardly. They tell me I don't understand. They tell me I won't survive in "the real world." All I know is this: That I was put on this planet for the little worms and the little humans, for the rivers and the animals and the trees, for the disenfranchised and the alienated, for the isolated, for the poor, for the hungry, for the mocked. I love you, Earth, and I love you, Humanity. Where are the other gentle souls?
I took a lovely walk this morning to Lincoln Tower to drop off my contract (YAY!). Apparently, there's a big Gap/Limited clearance sale going on at the Drake Union (which is across the street from Lincoln Tower). Underclass wimmin were streaming out of there in twos and threes with big Gap bags full of recently acquired purchases.
I just stood there, watching them wander away with their arms laden with purchases. Is /this/ what's important? Here I am, spending nights wondering how I would be with/talk to the ones I love if it came to that, wondering how I would get to my Yang, etc. I wonder about violence, and when we will break the cycle of anger and suffering and hurt. I wonder about racial profiling, and hate crimes. I spent half of yesterday afternoon at a meeting with a girl from Hillel so we can co-sponsor an anti-hate-crime rally thinger in memory of Kristallnacht. The Gap was the furthest thing from my mind.
I just felt so deflated. OSU is such an apathetic community as it is (rallies get 30-40 people in a university of 50,000 students)... but this? Le heaving sigh. I am Jack's Fanatic Global Empathy.
So on the long walk back to the Union, past the Biological Sciences building, past Mirror Lake, past the Amphitheatre (you are so totally taking this walk with me, Princess, it's lovely and when it's grey and blustery it is so very you), and toward work, I stopped at each and every worm I saw. Each little worm stretching across wet pavement, seeking moisture, seeking a new place to dig... I picked them up and gently rested them on the grass. So the hoardes couldn't stomp them. With their bicycles and their apathy and their double-wide shopping bags.
When I was seven, I was too sensitive. When I was twelve, I was an overreacter. When I was seventeen, I was in tune. When I was eighteen, I was empathic. When I was twenty, I was aware. I'm nearly twenty-six. Am I all of these things? Any of these things? They call me naive, and foolish, and cowardly. They tell me I don't understand. They tell me I won't survive in "the real world." All I know is this: That I was put on this planet for the little worms and the little humans, for the rivers and the animals and the trees, for the disenfranchised and the alienated, for the isolated, for the poor, for the hungry, for the mocked. I love you, Earth, and I love you, Humanity. Where are the other gentle souls?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
I love you.
Date: 2001-10-12 10:34 am (UTC)It just seems like so many people here are entirely unaware - not just about what happened 1000 miles away, or out in the Middle East. These youth don't care that people get beaten up right down the street because they "look gay." They don't care that they don't even know where Afghanistan is, though they are rallying for it to be "bombed off the map." They don't care that there has been a Real Live War fought in this country for years and years and years, the race war, and that people try to pretend it's not happening. They don't care that children starve here even though Sally Struthers is in some "third world" country with charismatically cute children. And they don't care that somewhere, one of their classmates is hurting because of this or another tragedy, and that they could do something about it.
I don't think you're heartless or ignorant because you want to do your hair or buy a shower curtain. I know that you can see past your own nose. I'm not so sure about a lot of people in the world, though... if they can.
Check on the web - the NBC News person who tested positive for anthrax is fine. You will be fine. I am envious of you right now - you are so wonderfully close to so many people I want to touch (yourself included), and here I am in Ohio.