La Vernia a simple town with simple problems

In La Vernia, I was never truly aware of suffering.  I had seen the news footage tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, was aware of starving kids in Africa and had seen the random homeless man trying to wash my car windows, but I had never actually been personally affecting by true suffering.  In La Vernia most people are well off, they have homes, clothes food.  This is not to say there aren’t people who are very poor, or that there are not other forms of suffering in La

 Vernia, but it is very easy to grow up without ever having to see it first hand. “Nobody teaches us to face suffering in this society. We never talk about it until we get hit in the face.” (Dass 52) This was the reason that my trip to China was such an eye opening experience.

One of the more mild pictures of survivors of the Sichuan earthquake-so much suffering

            I probably didn’t see the worst parts of China.  My sister in-law, who is Chinese, made sure that I ate at the best restaurants, went to the best malls where I got the best prices, rode taxis instead of public transit, when Dad came we stayed in the best hotels.  I know she just wanted us to have a great experience, but I could help but wonder if she also calculated a more than perfect trip, so we would have an idealistic positive impression of her homeland. Despite her best efforts, suffering could not be hidden.  The Sichuan earthquake had hit a few

 months earlier and thousands of people were killed or injured. As a result all along the street victims of the quake lay on the ground pleading for money.  I have never seen so much pain. Many of these people were not even recognizable as people, they were like blobs of skin and bone melting in the hot Cantonese sun.  I feel guilty, describing them with such little respect, but everything about there being oozed pain.  I felt in a way guilty, I could walk, speak, pick up food, eat, simple activities that many of these people could not do. I know it wasn’t my fault that they had suffered the quake and I hadn’t, but I still wondered why they had this horrendous misfortune, and I could like such a comfortable life.  Why is it that some suffer so much, while some suffer so little?

            This was only the beginning of my awareness of suffering.  My first semester of college, I was bombarded by more .  In OxFam I learned that the clothes and food I bought was only possible because some person had worked countless hours for pennies, in World Lit I learned how the beef I ate was beaten and abused, in my Voltaire’s Coffee I learned how the United States slaughtered innocent people for imperialistic means.  Everywhere I turned someone was in pain, someone was living in hell so I could enjoy a life of comfort.  How was this fair?

It is sobering to think that for Americans to live such a high standard of living, other must suffer.  Maybe Gandhi was right "Live Simply that other might simply live."

            I decided last semester that the only way to justify my lifestyle was to spend some chunk of my life aiding those less fortunate.  But “whom should I help anyway? Senior citizens, battered children, human-rights victims, whales? If we don’t defuse the nuclear threat, there’ll be no tomorrow. But if we don’t support education and the arts, what kind of tomorrow will it be?” (Dass 9) There is only so much of me and so many problems in the world, how can I make a difference?  What would be the best way to contribute without being burned out? “Sometimes the chance to care for another human being feels like such grace.  But later on, I’ll hear myself thinking, “hey what about me?”” (Doss 10) I thought that the best way to approach how to best help the world and how to do something that I would not be burned out on would be to better define myself.  However how does one define myself.  In American society normally our careers help provide this self identity, however as Dass points out this can be quite limiting. “Perhaps we recognize the predicament; we see the problem of always having to be “somebody.” So we decide to let it all go, become the model of humility, and aspire to the ideal of selflessness.” (Dass 28)  This is a really nice sentiment, however it doesn’t really help me plan my next steps in life.  I am all for making my existence more selfless, but how? If I said I wanted to help people through medicine I would have a clear path, I would become a doctor.  If I wanted to protect people’s rights, I could become a lawyer.  But again all these things have a clear path.  But at the end of the day “what’s left when they fall away? “Where’s the rest of me?”” (Dass 27)  But there is not clear path to becoming selfless.  So again I find myself lost.  I have no path.  I have vague goals, with no set way to achieve them, and I don’t know who I am…