Some small part of me has always thought about doing something to make the world better instead of just writing about the people who do. A friend that I deeply admire is starting law school this week after teaching in an innovative school for low-income boys for a year and then working as a paralegal for a homeless services organization for another year. Unlike many of the people who are going to his top-five law school, he isn't interested in the whopping $200,000 many first-year associates are now earning -- he wants to continue work for disadvantaged people and/or to teach. Being in Iraq, where literally everybody is suffering, makes me feel somewhat guilty that I'm not also making the world better, whether in New York or in Baghdad.
I know that storytellers have an important role in the world too, but to some extent it's that of a middleman -- get the information to the people who will actually do something about it. Supervisors have praised me for my critical eye toward happenings both in DC and Iraq, but there's a fine line between criticism and cynicism -- a line I find myself crossing fairly regularly. It sometimes scares me that I'm jaded at 23, that my mind ascribes political or self-aggrandizing motives to anyone who claims to be making progress in Iraq.
It's probably healthy that there's still part of me that wants to run away and join the Peace Corps or something, but I find it difficult to balance the two sides of my personality. I realize that dedicating my life to community service wouldn't put me in a position to solve the big problems of the world, but very often I feel powerless to fix even the small stuff. In the last three days, two close friends -- one in Iraq and one at home -- have, in different ways, lost people close to them, and it drives me crazy that I can't do anything about it. I realize that joining the Peace Corps wouldn't put me in a position to fix my friends' broken hearts, but wouldn't doing something for someone be a step in the right direction?
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3 comments:
I know it sounds glib, but I think the fact that you wrestle with negotiations like this is one of the things that makes the rest of us admire you so much! I think that your storytelling is critically important and that it's better for the world to hear about Iraq from a person who is in the process of being made cynical by the shame of it than from a person already too cynical to be shocked or moved by it at all. Anyway, I feel like I'm getting a critical education from what you write here and for the paper, and I'm really grateful for it.
As someone who consumes a lot of media information, your writing DOES make a difference. It influences the way people think (and subsequently act), and that has an immeasurable impact on the outcome of things.
As much as it must sometimes feel like you are tilting at windmills, there are a lot of folks who rely on someone who is smart, critical AND has some idealism left to tell us about things that we would never know about otherwise.
(Also, I'm still reading the blog, too, for what that's worth.)
i will admit that i hadn't actually read a whole news story about Iraq in well over a year. I read the headlines, I hear the stories on NPR, however I have not committed much true attention.
Since you have been there I follow the news more closely. I read your stories and have this joyful-verklempt feeling when I see your name in the byline. Every AP headline about explosions in the Dad sends me to your blog. Gosh I love my Q!
More importantly reading your inside stories has changed the way I read and listen to the news from Iraq. I know in my well educated mind that the reality is more complex than the headlines, however your writing makes that truth more real.
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