14 October 2006
♥ a call to apathy.
I am one of those people who never really can figure out what I want. I mean, right now, who am I? I'm a sixteen-year-old high school student who knows that I want to major in journalism at a liberal arts school in the Pacific Northwest. I want to join the Peace Corps. I want to do relief work in Africa. I want to make a difference in someone's life, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing that. To me, things like that are so inaccessible. I mean, when you think of relief work, who do you think of doing it? Middle-class white girls from suburban Arvada? No. You think of Bono and Angelina Jolie. It's not people like me.
So here's how I make myself feel better: rather than saying "This can't happen until I've got a degree, no one cares what I think right now," I'm going to do the best I can with what I have. No, I can't join the Peace Corps right now. No, I can't miss a semester of my junior year to promote AIDS awareness in Africa. And you know what, all the little protests I go to probably aren't going to draw much attention from the people who need to see them the most--the president is going to invade Iran regardless of whether I went to that protest in Boulder today. (Then again, I bet there will be a lot more protesting when we do enter Iran and the draft is reinstated--call me paranoid, but the fact of the matter is that we're out of troops, and more have to come from somewhere, and this time it's not just going to be boys and men.)
But I can write. Okay, so no one reads the Spectator or my dinky little blog. Somehow, though, the feeling that I'm getting it out there makes me feel a little better. Even if I know that the only people who will ever read what I write now are my best friends, Mr. Davis, and the 12 people who read the school paper, it makes me feel a little less lame to know that at least I can put it all into words.
Maybe once I've got this whole "changing the world" thing down, I'll have a better idea of who the hell I am.
Or maybe it doesn't even matter.
When will I make up my mind?!
So here's how I make myself feel better: rather than saying "This can't happen until I've got a degree, no one cares what I think right now," I'm going to do the best I can with what I have. No, I can't join the Peace Corps right now. No, I can't miss a semester of my junior year to promote AIDS awareness in Africa. And you know what, all the little protests I go to probably aren't going to draw much attention from the people who need to see them the most--the president is going to invade Iran regardless of whether I went to that protest in Boulder today. (Then again, I bet there will be a lot more protesting when we do enter Iran and the draft is reinstated--call me paranoid, but the fact of the matter is that we're out of troops, and more have to come from somewhere, and this time it's not just going to be boys and men.)
But I can write. Okay, so no one reads the Spectator or my dinky little blog. Somehow, though, the feeling that I'm getting it out there makes me feel a little better. Even if I know that the only people who will ever read what I write now are my best friends, Mr. Davis, and the 12 people who read the school paper, it makes me feel a little less lame to know that at least I can put it all into words.
Maybe once I've got this whole "changing the world" thing down, I'll have a better idea of who the hell I am.
Or maybe it doesn't even matter.
When will I make up my mind?!
10/14/2006
