start a love train, a love train

27 march 2010

as I sat on my spare bed that doubles as a sofa in my livingroom, eating my typical breakfast of chocolatly porridge goodness, i noticed that my laptop, playing only songs with the word "Train" in the title (there's a bunch - check em out), that even though my computer was a room away, I was comfortable listening to the music that way. Once removed.

I thought about how that might apply to other areas of my life and whether or not how I liked to listen to my music carried over into them.

Some people like to make their difference in this world by writing checks and posting them off to 3rd world countries or to organizations with some connection with said places. There's nothing wrong with that, in many situations, as I'm reading about in Half the Sky, that's exactly what some organizations need. People might have no idea how much their small contribution helps, they don't see the faces, the places, the lives that their pocket change has the ability to mold.

I guess I'm just not that kind of person. At least not right now.

i guess for me, for example, today is Umuganda. I plan to go out and do physical labor with the rest of my village community. i really hope that it's planting trees - that was their project last month. But see, for me, I guess I'm stingy with the finances but I'd like to think I'm very generous with other things - my time, my help. I know that this approach isn't for everyone. Not everyone is 22, lacking real adult responsibilities (a family, bills, ect) - much in the way I can't afford to write a check, others can't afford to set aside 2 years to put their personal life to move to these remote places of the world we hear about in the News, learn to adapt to a new lifestyle, culture, language, ect. That's okay!

Another way to go about things, I'm realizing, is with that degree of seperation. Playing reporter. Dropping in somewhere, getting the story and sharing it with the world. I think often this job, as in what you hear at night on the 7 o'clock World News - doesn't typically involve someone becoming a memeber of the community to get the scoop. I don't know, I really enjoy photography, but as I've said before, I'm afraid that if I spent too much time behind the leanse, then I wouldn't be in the bigger picture, really getting involved in the way I seem to value these days.

You don't have to have dirt caked under your fingernails after hours of carrying rocks and bricks to build a school to make a difference. You can stack your own bricks of change in other ways too. Find some means of helping the world and do it. You'll feel better about yourself and your life after you do so.