#113

I think that a large part of why I’m not destroyed by my lonliness is because of the fact that I’m absolutely certain I’m doing good things. I’m helping people around me to better themselves and to support them in my own way, even if it’s tiny. I’m giving other people a good example as best I can as how a person ought to be, I feel. When I try to dissuade people from an arguement of I try to chill people out I feel that I’m helping to show others how you should act. When I’m free with my money, willing to give away my drinks or food that I got for later if people say they’re thirsty or hungry, I feel I’m setting a good example for others to also be free and open with their things. I feel I’m doing a lot of good things.

I also feel that they’re very muted and I hold no delusions about just how far my being a good person is going to go with the people around me. I’m not stupid. I know the things I do are only going to truly resound within the people who are already at the point I am with money, with being nice and with trying to help each other out. Everyone else will probably notice, realize, but not really understand. They’ll think ‘oh, that’s nice of him’ or ‘oh, that was the right thing to do’ and then they’ll forget by the end of the day. By the time their own opportunity comes up to do the right thing, to do the just thing, they’ll have forgotten me and all the others like me and they’ll react in the way they always have. I feel that the real effects of my being a good person at this point are very, very shallow. They simply aren’t changing the world around me, they aren’t making things better for anyone else except for those tiny instances when I’m around to try to make it that way. There just aren’t enough people trying to do the right things and trying to improve the world out there…

The people of America are sick. They’re sick and disillusioned, by far. With but a precious few exceptions, the people of America think of themselves and their own and say fuck the rest. Look at all the aggression, look at all the hate…ask your friends and ask the people around you how many have donated to charity. Ask them who have gone out of their way to try and change things for someone other than theirselves. Everywhere I’ve been so far, there have been few who would do something like that unless forced. The people of America are too focused on getting that next buzz, on fufilling their next mindless desire. They’re too focused on themselves and too focused on money. They always need their money for a little more and they’re never satisfied…there’s always something else to buy. Something else to have. Something else to do. Some other buzz to fufill. No sense of community and too much sense of self. America is far too focused on the self and not enough on community.

I’m not trying to make myself out as a saint, either. I’m definately not. But there are few people trying to do the right thing. People are too sick. Too delusional. I’m a rare case…as sick as I am myself, as screwed up and delusional as I am myself, I’m still rare in the fact that I really do try to help things for everyone. For everyone and not just the people I associate myself with. My family and my focus aren’t those I grew up with, they are not those associated by blood and experience and feelings. My family is the entire world and that means bringing everyone together. There aren’t many people who feel that way. It’s rare for people to look beyond the people they associate with and to completely forget about (or demonize) the rest. That’s the difference between me and them. That’s why I’m not as sick as they are.

I wish I could actually do something for the others in the world. I want to travel to Ethiopia and do something to make a difference in their situations of poverty there. Simply giving money is obviously not enough. If you give a man a fish he’ll eat for a day, if you teach him how to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime, or so the story goes. Giving aid is not the answer. I want to help build their schools and help teach. I refuse to believe that they’re stupid simply because they’re from a poor country. I’m from a poor place myself and I know I’m more intelligent than most from the richest, most well-off households. Same with the Ethiopians. They just need the chance and the opportunities and the knowledge. With knowledge comes leverage, and with them weilding their own leverage then maybe they can get themselves out of the hole the troubles of the past and the current troubles the world forces upon them. I want to go to the middle east and show the right example of love and acceptance of all people and all cultures rather than the radical violence that takes up all the spotlights. I want to be seen and noticed and I want it to be known that there is no difference between us and them inherantly as a people; there are only good and bad people. Not good and bad faiths. Nothing else. Love and God bind us together no matter who we are, no matter what faith we believe in or whether or not we believe in faith at all. I want to make a real difference and to do something bigger than what I am. I want to go to the places where there really is more trouble than the relatively trivial problems of ‘my girlfriend broke up with me’ or ‘my boss is a jerk’ that are ever-so-popular here. I want to make a bigger difference and make amends and changes to the bigger problems where people are dying in the streets or starving to death from poor pay for their coffee or bananas. I want to be something big like that…I honestly feel like I don’t belong here in America. The land of the sick and depraved…that’s really what this place is like, by and large. There are so few, too few, who have actually moved beyond the American perception of self-importance….I don’t belong here. I belong in a place where I’m needed, where I can make a difference. I’m simply not doing enough here. I could be having much more impact, doing much more.