I had a rather sheltered childhood in Maine. I was never exposed to things like poverty or extreme racism. When I moved to Boston for college, I definitely got an eyeful and my perspective on life changed drastically. Ever since then I've tried my best to give back by teaching, volunteering, whatever I can do to help others, particularly those who are less fortunate.
I thought I knew everything about what made the world turn after living in Boston and doing some world-traveling.
Then I moved to NYC.
In the two weeks since I arrived I've seen levels of poverty and racism here that far exceed anything I've seen in my 34 years. My perspective on life is changing once again, except this time it's not in a positive way. I'm finding myself feeling a lot of sadness lately, and at first I thought it was just from missing my friends, family, and former home. But it isn't that.
There's so much hatred in our world and it's fully permeated our so-called "free" society. I think it's hard to fully understand or appreciate how bad it really is without living somewhere like NYC where people are piled on-top of each other...people from all different backgrounds; particularly culturally and socioeconomically. I see a 'tipping point' of sorts that gets exceeded all the time in the big city. And it's ugly, disappointing, but most of all sad.
I'm not on a soap-box here. I'm not trying to point out a problem with an underlying intention to get people to think about how to fix it. That isn't the purpose of this blog. I'm just describing my experiences. And at this point, my experience of NYC is the most poignant love/hate relationship I've ever had.
No comments:
Post a Comment