May 16...Pondering

5/16/10

From West of Jesus by Steven Kotler

Maybe that’s how things go. Maybe we tell ourselves stories right up until the moment we can no longer tell ourselves such stories. We believe the earth is flat until we believe it is round…. Scientists now believe the quantum world is a world of possibility. They believe that our most fundamental level of reality is not any one firm reality, rather the possibility of an infinite number of possibilities. We cannot find the cornerstone of our foundation because everything and nothing are the cornerstones of our foundation. We live in a world of magnificent maybe. And every now and again someone rattles the bones of the past in the direction of the future in the hopes that a wave will rise.



I guess the question is why am I here. Why did I leave my family and friends and a beautiful girl who loves me to serve in the Peace Corps? I could be chasing money in South Florida and living comfortably. Instead, I am sweating somewhere outside of Panama City, somewhere where the slum meets the farm. Training is a tedious affair, yet I would not trade it. To paraphrase a quote I read once: the explorers could not have discovered anything if they were scared to lose sight of the shore. Well I can’t see the shore and I’ve lost my bearings, yet I still have the hopeful expectation as if my ship just launched. Before I left the reactions were varied from positive encouragement to vacant stares. Some have idealistic views of the Peace Corps, a remnant of its birth in the 1960s and the hippie generation. Let me put that to rest. This is no lackadaisical organization. It is a machine intent on planting the seeds for a better world. The demands are high for the volunteers and the “aspirantes”, which I am. This is no tropical vacation. The goals are lofty. However the pressure is not to immediately end world hunger, cure AIDS and reverse climate change by saving the rainforest. Rather we are here to teach populations which haven’t had the opportunities we have had in the US to appreciate, improve and preserve the resources they have now. And maybe generations from now the world will be a better place because of our work and our sacrifices.
I am here because I could not quiet the voice in my head that told me to stop complaining and do something. I am here because I have had it too easy up until now. I am here because the men of my generation have not been made to be self reliant in the midst of the wild game of survival. We chase dollars never questioning the sources of wealth, never questioning if our easy living is making it hard for someone else.
This is the most selfless and selfish I have ever been. I am learning a new culture, a new language. I am learning how to build things with sweat, dirt, a machete and twine. I am a surfer in a surfer’s paradise (although I have yet to discover the untapped nooks and crannies of the dual coastlines). Everything I do here will benefit me. I am being trained to facilitate positive change. Maybe that will be in schools, in farms, in a coastal ecosystem or on the mountains. In some beautiful inverse relationship, everything I do will benefit someone else as well. That’s why I’m here.