Seeking the Seemingly Impossible

Two weeks back in Missouri and I’m, as Norah Jones so gracefully hums, "feelin’ the same way all over again." I love family and mom and dad fill a hole that nothing else in this world can, but here I am again – recharged, confident, and ready to go back out there and get what it is I am looking for. Which prompts the question so regularly posed that I hear it in my sleep, "What exactly is it, Jessi, that you are looking for?" More often than not, I can only answer with what I don’t want. Recently, however, I picked up a book in which the author puts into words what I more or less want to say. Speaking of why he decided to dedicate his life to initiating philosophical dialogue in coffee shops around the country, Christopher Phillips, in his book "Socrates Café," writes:

"Before I made the commitment to start Socrates Café both my personal and professional life had ceased to have meaning for me. Many of my nearest and dearest would have been surprised by this revelation. Many of them envied my life. For over a decade, I had been a writer for national magazines. I traveled a great deal, met fascinating people. But I was deeply unhappy. I frequently asked myself: ‘Why can’t I just be normal and accept the fact that jobs are not meant to be all that fulfilling? Why can’t I accept the fact that most adults end up abandoning their more youthful and idealistic aspirations?’ The answer I came up with was always the same: Because life is not a dress rehearsal. Because I shouldn’t settle for less than doing exactly what I want to do with my life, despite the risks, or, better, because of the risks. My philosophy of life had always been to live intensely, to love intensely. But I hadn’t done that. . . Nietzsche said something to the effect that one should strive to live dangerously, and I think what he meant was that we shouldn’t hesitate to take sublime risks with our lives."

"I think we all have some unique ability that we can transform into our life’s work and passion. . . Because if you don’t find that job that feeds your passion, that makes you excited to get up in the morning and give everything you have to your work, then what are you left with?"

Live intensely and love intensely. Take calculated risks. Live dangerously. Give everything you have to your life’s work. Find what feeds your passion. Thank you, Christopher Phillips, for putting into words what it is that I am looking for. I want to feel alive every day of my life. I don’t want to be numbed by routine, security and a false sense of stability. I don’t want to look forward to television and my couch. I want a morally rewarding life purpose that, no matter how small, betters the lot of humankind. I want to wake up in the morning with a determination to give my work every ounce of my energy. I want a job that deserves every ounce of my energy, creativity and passion. I want to be comfortable, but not so comfortable that I stop working to make myself a better, more whole human being or forget the suffering of others. I never want to stop learning. I want to speak three or more languages. I want to visit every region in this world. I don’t want to ever lose my childlike curiosity and wonder for the world and humankind. I don’t want to grow old inside. If I can’t move geographically, I want to be moved intellectually or emotionally; I want continual forward movement. I want to discover what I was born to do. I want to be continually challenged and I want to challenge others. I want to push both my own, and your, limits. I want to be outsmarted by others and then make them my close friends. If I can’t travel the world, I want to discover new worlds in my mind. I want to die with a smile on my face because I did everything in my power to live my life to the fullest.

Yep. I know. I’m a dreamer. Damn right. I’ll keep looking until I find it. Granted, I won’t find it all at once or anytime soon. I’ll hit wall after wall. I’ll take wrong turns and go backwards. I’ll wallow in doubt. Some days I’ll feel like throwing in the towel and settling for a life less fulfilling and exciting as I had hoped. I probably won’t have benefits or a retirement fund anytime soon. Need I remind you that people around the country WITH "secure" and "stable" ("real" gets a good laugh out of me) jobs are losing those nice benefits, if not the job itself? There is no security there anymore. A large retirement fund which allows me to travel when I’m not watching television all day? I think I’ll just live my life now, while I am young, mobile, healthy, cancer-free, comfortable with few comforts, flexible, arthritis-free, dependent-free, adventurous, and have zero mortgage, car payments, bad hips, or a strict diet due to health conditions. Looking at my retirement-age parents, I doubt I will be any better at sitting still at 65 than I am at 24.

Besides, what other choice do I have? Sell out on my childlike aspirations because they were proving too difficult to realize? Give up and live with the subsequent long-term, gnawing disappointment and insidious self-resentment because I stopped believing in myself. Live but not be alive, just going through the motions?

Nah, I think I’ll just put on my helmet and ride this crazy notion. Bruises and bumps are better than a broken soul.

*This blog post facilitated by Jem’s "It’s Amazing." Download it.

As I stare at my very rough draft of a cover letter and ponder on how I can better fawn over myself and egotistically describe my greatness to my potential employer, I can’t help but smirk at the irony of this task during such an ambiguous time in my life. In this ironic state of mind, I’d like to write a cover letter that read more like the following. . .

“Upon graduating college, I have gained knowledge and experience in more areas than I would have preferred. I have become an expert in self-questioning, lesson-learning, reality-accepting, time-killing, mistake-making and emotional ups-and-downs. I have a firm grasp on the significance of all of those adages my mother quoted when I was a young girl preoccupied only by how many charms my necklace had.

I have learned that virtue is ambiguous. Are we strong because we refuse to let weakness show or are we strong because we are unafraid to let ourselves feel everything? Am I a better leader because I am tough and stoic? Or do I serve others better by showing every ounce of my humanity, thereby allowing others to feel close to me? Am I patient because I have no problem waiting in lines (thanks to developing countries) or because I am unwearied by the prospect of waiting until 40 years old to meet my future husband (eek)?

From the women in my family and my best friend, I have learned to say exactly what is on my mind; from my father and brother, I have learned that keeping quiet is often a better policy. From textbooks, I learned that great people were successful because they were hard workers; from life I have learned that mere chance is a good chunk of all that fortune, fame and success. From my culture, I learned that material wealth is a predecessor to joy; from other cultures, I have learned that the relationship is usually inversed. Though I prefer black and white, I live most days in the gray. I get older every day, yet I know less and less about life. Finally, if I were to paint a picture right now, it might end up looking a lot like one of Picasso’s: woman or man, circle or square, sitting or standing, going or staying? Who says genius is born of stability?

I admit that most of my experience in the past three years has taught me what I don’t want or what I don’t know; however, there are some areas in which I am absolutely solid. My mother and father’s relationship taught me that some people love you even when you go crazy, love can also be spelled as C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-I-O-N, and it’s never too late to be in love. I was raised with a phenomenal example of love. When the timing is right, I will make a difference in this world, even if it is just a drop in the ocean. Even when I am lonely, I am never alone. Lastly, on a lighter note, tonight I discovered that if you don’t drain every iota of grease from cooked ground beef, it tastes really bad in spaghetti sauce.

In conclusion, because I have no concrete skills, pretense about my greatness, or solid understanding of life, I will humbly serve you for little pay. I assure that you will not have any ego issues if you hire me. On the other hand, you will find that despite all of the aforementioned woes, I find humor in the twists of life and am able to laugh at myself. To my utter bemusement, life keeps getting better as it gets harder.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope to hear from you soon."

. . . Ok, back to this cover letter. If only it were as fun and came to me as easily as this blog entry!

Nicaraguan Nostalgia

I recently finished looking through some pictures of San Ramon - the town I lived in for nine months in Nicaragua - that were taken by an American girl I met while there. She is a friend on Facebook and she recently posted some pictures she had taken for a Christmas toy drive. Seeing San Ramon through the lens of someone else, after such a long time without revisiting my own, affected me greatly.

When I see pictures of San Ramon, or revisit mental images and the live moments I have stored away, I feel a rush of emotions. It is hard for me to even pinpoint what these emotions mean or why I have them, but they are still as strong as they were when I left a year and a half ago. I recognize every individual mountain in the background of the pictures, the pattern in the road, the color of the fence lining the stadium and I can remember how I felt looking at all of them in real time. It's as if I have an emotional relationship with every single artficact in San Ramon and upon seeing them in pictures they once again take hold of me.

The only reason I can give for these strong emotions in association with San Ramon is the solid fact that those nine months make up the most intense period of time in my life. Nicaragua shaped me like no other experience thus far; it bent me, it nearly broke me, it held me up, it pushed me down. My time in Nicaragua was an emotional roller coaster that eventually molded me into a new kind of strong, but the emotional test that I endured still evokes a tinge of fear inside of me. That was a scary time in my life and I can still feel that when I think back to those early months in San Ramon.

San Ramon was also home to a radical transformation within me - one that was still taking place up to six months ago. I was hit with so many life lessons at once and in one tiny dot on the Nicaraguan map (even if some of the lessons had nothing to do with Nicaragua itself). A part of my "self" died there, was left behind; undoubtedly, a necessary and good transformation but one that creates a sense of nostalgia as I look back. A nostalgia that reminds me we can never go back, that some parts of us are forever altered and the change irrevocable, that some pain is never fully forgotten and that youth really was innocent.

I know I will visit San Ramon again one day; I hope soon. If I am moved by just photos, I can't imagine how strongly I will be affected when I stand in front of the same mountains, morning sunrise, and humble cabin where I lived for nine months. I know there is something more I am supposed to understand about that time and that place. Something I won't understand until I return.

When Women Rule the World?

The longer I work in developing countries, the more I believe that it will be women, if anyone, who non-violently change the world.

It was the case in Nicaragua, and is in Argentina too, that for every ten people actively working for improvement in their community and/or way of life, eight to nine of them are women. Every community meeting or workshop or special gathering I attend in these marginalized neighborhoods is composed of a handful of middle-aged women who are absolutely not afraid to speak their minds.

Globally, the power of women to change the world has been recognized by the leading opinions in the developing world. One of the United Nations Millennium Development goals is to educate girls and see them equally represented in secondary school throughout the world. Just because it’s fair? No; because, if you give a young girl the opportunity to dedicate her life to not only family and tradition roles, but also to her own education and potential, you have given her the tools to be a powerful force of change. Case in point: numerous studies have confirmed and I know from my own experience in the field of microloans that women (in the developing world, remember) have more success in paying back their small loans, are better savers and spend extra income in socially productive ways. You give a middle-aged woman five dollars to spend it however she wants and she will take her child to the doctor or send her children to school with new notebooks or shoes. She will use her money to perpetuate a healthy society. You give a middle-aged man the same opportunity, and he will often go buy cigarettes, beer or go spend an hour at the slot machines.

While not sociologically qualified to say this, I have a notion that the subtle male identity crisis that is very real in my country may also be occurring on a global level.

I don’t write these observations with any hidden feminist agenda; this is what I see happening in the developing world and what has been recognized globally and proven statistically. Women are an incredible investment as agents of social change. I am continually amazed by the spirit of these women upon arriving to these community gatherings. They do not hesitate to stand up, walk to the front of the room, raise their voices to be heard, declare what they see as injustice in their lives and neighborhoods, and call for a dedication to work for change. Rounds of applause from the twenty or so other women in the room follow the passionate tirade and create a deafening noise.

And we North Americans have this tendency to believe that the woman of the developing world is oppressed and not given a voice. While it is the case some times, it’s quite the opposite when you let her out of the house!

When I find myself among these women and awed by their strength of spirit, I can’t help but wonder:

Why is it, again, that men have ruled the world for so long?

When the City Slows Down

I think I keep coming back to this topic, but I love Sundays in Buenos Aires. They are the quintessentially simple Sunday. There is a fourth of the traffic; my usual hustle and bustle neighborhood is so quiet I can hear my own footsteps on the broken sidewalk. Old men with canes populate sporadic city benches and elderly couples enjoy actual lazy Sunday strolls (at a snail's pace, seriously). The men in the bakery, the one I can't pass without stopping, are especially outgoing on Sunday and don't let anyone leave with just one croissant.

"Something more my dear?" (big smile)

"No, no, I really can't, one croissant is enough."

"Ahhhh, but for you my love, you need at least two!"

"Yeah, you know, you are right. Throw it in the bag."

Cafes are packed with people passing the morning with coffee, croissants, and the massive Sunday paper. Parks are full of lovers, fathers and daughters, picnics and sunbathers. No one rushes. Portenos (the name given to Buenos Aires' inhabitants) are clearly a happy, laid back bunch all the time, but on Sundays they just coast.

Normally, I use Sunday to enjoy an especially long run, but this past one I dedicated the day to sitting in cafes and parks, sipping coffee and eating sweets. I went Porteno. I spent two hours reading the paper with my coffee and cake, then headed to the botanical garden where an abundance of stray cats live. I made a couple of feline friends thanks to a can of tuna, laid in the grass for a bit, moved to a bench to write and did a couple of laps Porteno style. Slow as molasses. Moving on to the next park, I joined rollerbladers, bikers, joggers and popcorn stands on the lanes that outline a park with a small pond, quaint bridge and geese. Later I went to an open-air market I hadn't been to and met up with a friend for a flamenco show.

It was a simple day among a background of grad school applications, internship shopping, and the continuous effort to match ambition with opportunity. I plan on keeping my Sundays in such a sacred style. Enjoying the here and now. That's my form of worship.

An Ode to Running

It's hit and miss. One day I feel like I am giving my life and my energy to exactly what I was meant to. The next day, I feel like I am wasting my time and still have not figured out my purpose. On those days, when heavy questions form ominous, dark clouds over my mind and all seems like confusion, the only remedy I have is to run. It's incredible the difference an hour-long run can make on my state of mind.

Everything stirring in my head starts to settle and become manageable. My world becomes stable again. By the time I finish running, I am again confident I am on the right path and I can believe the world is working for me. Dark clouds give way to light.

Many days the only thing I see through from finish to start, the only objective I manage to complete, is a run. It's often the only action to which I can concentrate my abundant energy. Everything else remains open-ended and vague.

Another Lesson in Poverty

Today was a fundamental day. It was my first day out in the neighborhood where the foundation for which I am interning works. It was a day to learn what poverty is here, in Buenos Aires. It was a day to put my mind around what it is the foundation intends to do and what it is up against.

The poverty in the surrounding areas of Buenos Aires is different than the poverty I saw in Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, people could not secure basic needs – food, shelter, water. In Buenos Aires, most of the people can secure enough food, have a house (albeit a flimsy one made of scrap wood) and beds on which to sleep, have electricity, and the truck that dispenses potable water passes through once a day. They have secured the most basic level of existence on Maslow’s hierarchy, but nothing more.

In the neighborhood where Fundacion Metafora works, most of the people did not complete high school and, consequently, are unemployed (50% unemployment rate, estimation). An elementary-educated, workless mass of people is a swamp socially and culturally. If a large group of people have nothing productive to do all day, every day, they will do other things, such as have a lot of unprotected (high reproductive rates, disease), unsolicited (rape, incest) and premature (pregnant 14-year-olds) sex, drugs, or enter the black market (prostitution, narcotics). Culturally, they will function at the basic level as well. Inter-feuding is rampant in this neighborhood, making it nearly impossible to bring the people together so that they can change their living conditions. Clientelism is thick here – political entities manipulate the uneducated in exchange for votes and loyalty. I get your family access to more government programs or buy you a new refrigerator, you convince your neighbors to vote for this political party. Clientelistic practices exacerbate division within the community and generate a gross amount of mistrust and suspicion.

In Virrey del Pino, the neighborhood where the foundation works, there is another complication. Ten or so years ago, a multinational corporation built a factory alongside the community. The company didn’t employ any of the people in the neighborhood because, well, they don’t have high school educations. It also did not dispose of its chemical waste in a proper manner; it dumped them, contaminating the neighborhood’s water source and causing other unpleasant environmental consequences (it has since cleaned up and follows regulations). There are other complaints . . . loads of them. Needless to say, the people in Virrey del Pino don’t have a very healthy relationship with the factory. Enter politics, power and money. If I manipulate these uneducated, bored, deservedly-angry people into rising up against the factory, I could then bribe the factory to pay me a little to take care of the mess. Strikes start. Factory work interrupted. Extortion. Manipultion. Money. Money. Money. Or, I am a lawyer. I convince these uneducated, bored, deservedly-angry people that it IS the factory’s fault that their roof is leaking, that the air smells funny, that they feel dizzy and have a chronic cough. I convince them that they should file a lawsuit and I - their savior, the one to free them from the yoke of poverty – will be the one to make their voice heard and make that bad, mean factory deliver the money. Deliver to me, that is, because I will get an outrageous percentage if they ever see anything at all.

That’s the poverty existing in the neighborhood where Fundacion Metafora works; a poverty stemming from social exclusion and political manipulation. A poverty that kills hope, stunts progress, creates cynicism, stirs conflict and seeks scapegoats.

The foundation’s way of combating this poverty is to create active, aware citizens out of the people who currently reside in the neighborhood. For them to change they way they live, they have to change their minds. The foundation is trying to form a bridge of understanding between the factory and the community in place of the one currently built on suspicion and mutual resentment. Last week, community members were invited to take a tour of the factory. The foundation offers workshops for the population such as cooking, basic computer courses, parenting, and even one where the young people write articles for a community newspaper. They have helped create a sewing cooperative among some of the women. All of this is done with the hope that the people will have a reason to come together, an outlet for their energy and talent, a hope that they can advance themselves and be the creators of their own future.

Having only been in the community a year, there is a lot of work to be done by the foundation. Step one: turn complainers into doers. Turn divided minds into united by the desire for progress. That in itself, from what I learned today, is going to take awhile.

I am definitely writing conflict resolution and community development on my resume for graduate school.