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So take logic off the shelf… deep in my heart like nobody else
posted on February 26, 2012
♬♫♪: The Jezabels – “Horsehead”
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Reading: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
For the past several months, I’ve been stuck inside the grip of this paralyzing frustration about the world. I feel as if education & the encouragement of critical thinking gives me such a high. But then it’s completely sobered when I start to read the news and see all of the shit that goes on: Bahrain & Syria’s protests, Saudi Arabia & Afghanistan’s stupid ass, barbaric policies on women, incredibly hypocritical US foreign policies. Just seeing how the Occupy Wallstreet movement was condemned when their message was “We don’t know what exactly to do but we know that when 1% of this country holds wealth, therefore power, something is dangerously & horribly wrong.” It just infuriates me while paralyzing me with this overwhelming emotion of hopelessness. I am only one person, what can I even do? What can I even change? Why should I even try if I don’t have any faith that anything will come of it?
So while I was studying hard for my organic chemistry quiz (which I think I did pretty good on) with a group of 3 other friends when one of my close friends called me. And normally I hate talking on the phone because it completely bores me. I love to see facial expressions, gestures, all that humany stuff 
But she is one of the few people I can spend hours on the phone with so I decided an organic break was greatly in order!
She brought up the beginning of Lent. And she asked what she should sacrifice this year. So we talked and joked about giving up breathing, talking to white people (this was totally not serious & is kind of impossible living in the midwest United States! 
) & giving up her favorite show Once Upon a Time. Then we went through her not drinking water for an hour once a week for this would cause us to empathize and remember the people who couldn’t drink clean water. Or not using electricity after 6pm since that’s the norm in some parts of the world. Or not eating lunch to remember and empathize with those who struggle to find their next meal. And she asked me then if I would consider doing it with her.
At first, I was excited. I would actually be doing something! But it was almost immediate when that intellectual paralyzing grip of just absolute hopelessness took its hold of me:
“But what would be the point? Nothing would happen.” And she said a Mother Teresa quote along the lines of my actions could inspire someone else. And so I said I’d consider doing something, not necessarily for Lent because I’m not Christian (I don’t know what I am right now), but just for whatever I guess.
It didn’t take me long to then go online & look for other things Mother Teresa said. The quote that has just stayed on my heart the most was this: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” I’m gonna try my fucking hardest to start with this.