I know I tend to blog mostly about makeup, and that makeup is considered by most people to be pretty frivolous. (Let me save my makeup manifesto for another day, but I definitely have thoughts on that.)
The truth is, in the world outside of my blog, I've had lots of heavy thoughts weighing on my mind lately. Not the least of which is the huge tragedy that is going on right now in Japan. I've been reading a lot, watching a lot, thinking a lot about the nature of humanity and where we're all headed, and whether we are the solution or the plague, and so far I've refrained from discussing it much (or at all) in my blog because the truth is that I don't have anything coherent to say.
What is this life? What is this world we live in? I am confronted every day both by people who inspire me to be a better person and by people who leave me disappointed that we are the same species. For most (dare I say all?) of my adult life, I have lived under a government whom I feel does not have our best interests at heart, and what's worse than that is that I don't think it's any different from any administrations that came before it or that will follow it. When I check my email and see the news headlines in the little box, at least half of them involve murder.
I don't know how to handle stuff like that. I grew up a sheltered little nerdy Asian kid. I have a large family who lives close by and whom I see all the time. My parents are still happily married. My brother and I have always gotten along. I can say unequivocally that I am a very lucky person. So I don't know how to process all of the ugly that exists in this world. I can't handle it. It's not that I want to turn a blind eye, because I don't. I want to fight. But I have no idea what my place is in all of this. Sometimes I feel like a mere spec of dust in the universe, too small to even cast a shadow. How do I even begin to start making this world the kind of place that my daughter could be happy and safe in?
This weekend, Jimmy played a song for me from Jarvis Cocker (former lead singer of one of our favorite bands, Pulp), and one of the lines from the song really helped put things into perspective for me:
You can't set the world to rights,
But you can stop being wrong tonight.
It seems fairly obvious, yes, but it's something I need to be reminded of every now and then: maybe I'M not going to singlehandedly make the world a better place, but I could do my part to stop making it worse. We ALL could. Maybe we can't all be revolutionaries and heroes, but we could all be a little less jerky, a little less selfish in our everyday lives. And that's a tall enough order as is. But we can do it. We could try.
*ETA*
Just as I finished typing this post in which I talk about how sad I am about the world and about how we all need to be better people, a TA just brought me a gift from one of the ladies who works in the main office. It's a beautiful crocheted baby sweater. The TA could not remember the woman's name who was sending it to me, so I don't know whom to thank. But it was completely unexpected, and lovely!
The truth is, in the world outside of my blog, I've had lots of heavy thoughts weighing on my mind lately. Not the least of which is the huge tragedy that is going on right now in Japan. I've been reading a lot, watching a lot, thinking a lot about the nature of humanity and where we're all headed, and whether we are the solution or the plague, and so far I've refrained from discussing it much (or at all) in my blog because the truth is that I don't have anything coherent to say.
What is this life? What is this world we live in? I am confronted every day both by people who inspire me to be a better person and by people who leave me disappointed that we are the same species. For most (dare I say all?) of my adult life, I have lived under a government whom I feel does not have our best interests at heart, and what's worse than that is that I don't think it's any different from any administrations that came before it or that will follow it. When I check my email and see the news headlines in the little box, at least half of them involve murder.
I don't know how to handle stuff like that. I grew up a sheltered little nerdy Asian kid. I have a large family who lives close by and whom I see all the time. My parents are still happily married. My brother and I have always gotten along. I can say unequivocally that I am a very lucky person. So I don't know how to process all of the ugly that exists in this world. I can't handle it. It's not that I want to turn a blind eye, because I don't. I want to fight. But I have no idea what my place is in all of this. Sometimes I feel like a mere spec of dust in the universe, too small to even cast a shadow. How do I even begin to start making this world the kind of place that my daughter could be happy and safe in?
This weekend, Jimmy played a song for me from Jarvis Cocker (former lead singer of one of our favorite bands, Pulp), and one of the lines from the song really helped put things into perspective for me:
You can't set the world to rights,
But you can stop being wrong tonight.
It seems fairly obvious, yes, but it's something I need to be reminded of every now and then: maybe I'M not going to singlehandedly make the world a better place, but I could do my part to stop making it worse. We ALL could. Maybe we can't all be revolutionaries and heroes, but we could all be a little less jerky, a little less selfish in our everyday lives. And that's a tall enough order as is. But we can do it. We could try.
*ETA*
Just as I finished typing this post in which I talk about how sad I am about the world and about how we all need to be better people, a TA just brought me a gift from one of the ladies who works in the main office. It's a beautiful crocheted baby sweater. The TA could not remember the woman's name who was sending it to me, so I don't know whom to thank. But it was completely unexpected, and lovely!