For the first time in as long as I can remember, I stepped away from reading news. I don't mean that I just decreased what I read. For over two whole months, I did not absorb any significant news.
Part of it was due to increased focus on the bar exam, but most of it was a conscious effort to walk away from the world for a bit and hide in my lair. In that time, I moved in with roommates, read several books, built a computer, played lots of computer games, and generally embraced a selfish style of life. Knowing myself, it wasn't enough for me, particularly after reading "The Razor's Edge" by Maugham.
I read "The Idiot" by Dostoyevsky a while back, and Maugham's work brought back what I found to be the essence of Dostoyevsky's Prince Myshkin. For those who haven't read "The Idiot", Myshkin is an epileptic that was raised far away from his native Russia. His way of thinking and interacting with others are thought to be naive and like that of an idiot. However, Myshkin acts with a thoughtfulness, respect, and kindness that others just cannot comprehend, branding him an outcast in a society that wishes to embrace it's convoluted, self-interested ways.
Maugham's Larry Darrell is a similar character - a messianic figure of sorts that showed a different way of life that conflicted with society. Darrell has the chance to embrace a life of wealth and happiness with a childhood love, but runs away from it in search of self-discovery. By no means is he selfish. Instead, he helps all of those he encounters. He simply walks away from a life of materialistic comfort to seek a life of spiritual peace.
With school over and choices ahead of me, I've been able to think a bit about what path I want to take. Most people I know are content to ride along a standard path that so many people equate with success - a job, a house, a stable relationship. I find it hard to accept that this is all there is after decades of education where we have been given the chance to expand our minds to utilize tools to which most in the world will never have access.
In fact, I can say it would be a failure of potential and responsibility at this point to simply progress forward on that common, obvious track. Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" hints that the road less traveled will be more interesting, but it will also be fraught with struggle and confusion. There may be no success at the end, but unlike many others, we have the tools to embark upon that path.
For the first time in my life, I can say that the path ahead of me isn't clear. Worst of all, I'm starting to realize that it's not going to be an easy one. It's not about finding a job or paying rent, but it's about pursuing a responsibility that can't be put aside in the name of simplicity, comfort, and ease.
In this mindset, I started to pay attention to the world around me several days ago. I gently started to read, think, and write. In reading, I realize that the world has become a more confusing place in the few months I've been away. Then again, that is the way of the world. It stops for no one.
In some ways, it was appropriate that I started to enter the world again on the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001. I remember waking up to the a description of the World Trade Center being hit by planes. I watched as the Pentagon burned from the plane that crashed into it. But, as always, life went on.
I wish I could say this is where the U.S. dealt with adversity, conquered it's enemy, and made the world a safer place. But the world stops for no one, and the world got to be a more confusing place.
As I read through what goes on today, I realize that we have embraced a world of fear. We act because we fear poverty, terrorism, unemployment, government, or solitude. When I talk to those around me, I realize we don't have hope anymore. No one talks honestly of a brighter tomorrow that is safe, comfortable, and peaceful. Instead, there is simply living in the present because the future is just ahead of us, inevitably bringing it's consequences of success and failure. We accept the future for what it is, embracing that fear as a part of life.
I think it's easy to pretend otherwise. It's easy to ignore the problems of the world, to say they aren't ours to worry about. How can an individual affect the lives of starving children in some far away country? Why should I be responsible for the failures of those around me, those that are doomed to a life of poverty? Why must I care about the racism and bigotry around me when I am not the target of such actions?
These questions are rooted in fear and blossom with ignorance. They have become a part of life we can ignore, like the filthy, smelly man sitting on the sidewalk, repeatedly asking for change.
That's not the life I wanted. That's not that society I looked forward to joining as a child. I refuse to live in a world that reacts in fear of our failures. I refuse to look away and ignore.
