When I was a kid, I distinctly recall that bursting feeling of soaring optimism and hope for my future and for my nation. When I lost my mom as a teenager, that hope was swallowed in a cloud of blackness. The years since have been a painful but liberating exercise in the duality of human nature. I am both more optimistic than I was as a child, and more pessimistic than I was as a teenager. I am optimistic because I have seen so many oppressive walls shattered in my short lifetime. I have seen the frontiers of human rights pushed to new boundaries, and hundreds of millions of people across the world lifted from the abyss of poverty. I have seen the burning power of the youth and idealism, the song of dreams echo. I have seen kindness and compassion, empathy and love. I have seen the world connect in ways that the greatest minds in human history failed to predict. I however, have also seen the slithering, sinking force of human greed that occupies every corridor and room of human activity. I have seen too often our inability to protect progress or eradicate ignorance. I have seen the entrenchment of power and the status quo. I have seen failed revolutions and crushed social justice movements. I have seen mass shootings, oil spills, bombs, chemical warfare, drone strikes and many other terribly atrocities. There is an old Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times. Indeed, we do.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 02:48:46 +0000
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