Setting Priorities

My 2nd grade teacher had it right when she snapped to attention a daydreaming Alex. She said something like, "Unless what you're thinking about is so important that it's going to save the world, you should pay attention to what I have to say, right now!"

Sure, she was a bit sharp, but this quip makes the choice clear: do what you're supposed to do unless you have something better to do.

In my mind, this interaction created a series of complex priorities as follows:

• Ignore class whenever you feel like it
• Pay attention to class because it's probably more meaningful then straight daydreaming
• Use class as inspiration for important things
• Pursue important things when inspired by class
• Try to save the world
  

Kind of Funny, Kind of Strange

I see a guy and a girl not talking at the cafe. They're sitting by a temporarily abandoned table with a laptop and a couple scattered papers. I'm looking at a table that's somewhat close to a wall socket.

But the table has bad lighting so I look elsewhere. Eventually, I return due to lack of options. After sitting down, I make my realization: the non-talking couple are have a post break-up conversation.

Shiiit.

I open my notebook and start writing. Meanwhile, the guy, a scraggy, wiry sort, reaffirms his love for the Indian girl who's dressed a little too well. The formerly abandoned table is re-stationed by this lady with shorts bordering on short-shorts. The girl begins to cry. I'm cross-checking my notes. The guy begins to cry. The lady wears ear-phones and has been staring blankly at her laptop for the last ten minutes.

I finish what I'm working on and decide to talk to the lady. It turns out she's writing a speech while suffering a heavy case of writer's block. I know a little bit about writing speeches, so we talk for about 15 minutes, then I return to my table to read.

The point is, after the couple leaves, another guy with one gauged ear and a black "HATE" t-shirt takes their place. He opens conversation with the lady, and we relate to him the couple scene.

It was so awkward she says. He would have laughed at them and told them to stop being such pussies he says. I kind of enjoyed it.

And so there we were - a blaster, a voyeur, and a dodger. That's at least three ways of living life.

Living with Dignity without Greatness

Isn't it true that not everybody can be a leader - that not everybody can be a hero?

But is it also true that not everybody can make a difference?

After sending an e-mail to a teacher i know at the African Leadership Academy, i recognized a sort of smugness at how we perceive our roles in the world. "We're trying to make a difference," we think to ourselves, "while trying to balance our personal lives too!"

He follows his dream and teaches math to the future leaders of Africa. I follow my dream and investigate what it means to learn. But what about the people we're trying to affect - the people we don't talk to, or even think about - these people we nonetheless try to help, these people who try to live the the best they can within the constraints of their reality (like an office worker who enjoys his social life). Are these people somehow less? After all, these people certainly aren't leaders.

But I think they're heroes. It takes a lot of gusto just to be yourself amidst the call to justice, the call to peace, and the call to innovation. These people who live just for themselves - they must sometimes doubt the legitimacy of their life when compared to all these great leaders - but they continue.

Everybody has a role they play. Each person has a force with a certain direction and size (and can be represented as a "person-arrow". Society is like a gigantic lump of these arrows, with the direction of society determined by adding or subtracting the direction of these person-arrows. So while a given arrow might be bigger, and its role might be more important, does that make the smaller arrows any less dignified?

No. It doesn't. I'd say the presence of big arrows makes the small arrows more dignified. It's hard to live with dignity when surrounding greatness threatens to choke and suffocate any claim to your own significance.

"Finally" Run

I'd been wanting to run for maybe three weeks. After returning from nyc and vowing to quit cigarettes, I thought a little exercise would help me break the nicotine cycle. Of course, I didn't have clean good laundry.

Grabbed a clean-looking shirt and ran out - just for a short while, and I sensed something amiss. A passer-by seemed to smile to herself - or else was made uncomfortable. What was wrong? I looked down, "Oh God," I thought, "Please let this shirt not be a 'Save Darfur' t-shirt..."

Of course...

Seriously, the shirts are so rampant that despite never attending a protest, one nevertheless found its way into my drawer. That's pretty cool.