library time (in three seperate parts)

Yesterday I spent 6 hours at the library looking for two articles, any two articles, on the same topic so I could compare them in a paper. I didn’t find anything (anything=anything mildly interesting to me). I couldn’t find anything I wanted to write about. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to read about. I couldn’t find two that were similar. And I found that the more I read, the less I cared.

I pictured myself giving up and walking away from the madness, the words running together. I imagined standing up, triumphal music in the background and saying I don’t care about this! as I raised my hands slowly in the air. My fellow students would join me, dropping their books and walking out, slowly, free from the constraints of words running together into mush. There would be wind blowing and not one of us would be thinking “how is there wind in a library?” because we were that overcome with emotion and music and the lighting would be perfect. And we would be free. Free. And we would go outside and the crisp autumn air would cut into us- cut through the bookhaze, cut through the hours we spent on facebook procrastinating and we would look at each other and realize that we were here and we were free and we didn’t need to look at a computer screen to fellowship because there were real, live people right there- and there would be a man who was crying because he hadn’t been outside the library in 14 years because he had forgotten that there was a world outside and he would tell us in tears how he had been living off vending machine food that he got by tying a string to a pound coin he had found and putting it in the machine then pulling it out and we would all surround him and pat his arm say soft and comforting things and maybe a girl started crying too because she spent more time talking online or texts than she did with real people.

Then inspiration would hit and we would all take off running towards Kelvingrove park and not stop- even though we are all out of shape and panting, and maybe some of us would carry each other piggyback for fun- until we reach the top of the hill that has no trees and we would look out on the city. Then we would probably look at each other because in an instant we would all know exactly what had to happen, what we needed to do, what we all needed to do, and then, in that instant, as though we were one person we would all jump and start rolling down the hill. We would roll like toilet paper, and from very far away I bet you could see that what was left of our worries would lie on the slope in long stripes and make a pretty waterfall of terrors that passed and unraveled and turned out to be nothing but decoration for a hillside, but none of us would roll like Princess Buttercup in the Princess Bride because she rolls in the dumbest way possible and you could really get hurt that way, except maybe one person, as a joke and maybe that person says “as you wish” as they go down too, just to make sure we all get the reference and don’t think they are dumb for rolling like that. And then all that was left at the end of the hill would be bare humans without their worries wrapped around them as padding. When we got to the bottom we would sit, and look back on what we had done. Maybe some of us would be puking I bet because it’s a pretty far roll and a pretty steep hill, and not everybody has a strong stomach, but the rest of us don’t mind. And maybe some people liked it so much they ran up for another go and rolled down again and again, and the rest of us cheer them on. Probably we would be laughing because we are free and still feelin’ good but also because now it looks like we’ve doubled in size and we are only a little upset when we realize it’s just our vision is all messed up from the rolling.

And we would sit there until night so that we could look at the stars and we would think about nothing else but that we were there and together and free, even if it was just one day, and that we were real humans. But when night came, I bet we couldn’t see the stars because our eyes were so bright and also because we live in the city and so then there would be high-fives all around and I bet then everyone would go home and tell our friends or family or spouses about our terrific day meeting new people and rolling down hills and about the toilet paper landscapes and I hope at least some of the people we tell are really excited for us, really happy for our day, and that they listen with rapt attention and at the end just say “thank you” and nothing else.

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It’s not that I don’t care about human rights (I like to think) it’s just that you can only read so many papers talking and talking and talking about how things are wrong, oh so wrong in the world, and about paradigms and feminist vs andocentric perspectives and what the underlying received wisdoms are before you start to not care anymore. I mean, it’s all talk anyway.

I find this funny because I used to be one of those people who would think about something like a hypothetical stream that was filled with pollution and wreaking havoc on a village and turning the babies into fire breathing babies and the children now have blue spiky hair that helped them up climb trees (up trees, but not down) and there was a group of dirty old men who had somehow gotten laser vision from the polluted water and would sit on the porch and look at women through their clothes and shout out ratings and also everyone was sick and dying and it was very sad and scary and most people go there and say oh no! we need to help these people and start making the mothers carry fire extinguishers and gave teachers ladders and scissors to climb up trees and cut hair and gave the old men a stern talking to and a chess board to distract them, and maybe some other people would come and say hey! That’s not helpful, these people are still sick and dying, why not deal with the sickness, and they started giving them medicine for it, but also doing drug research to figure out how to get rid of it instead of just treating the symptoms and then there were people who are like, you should also teach them not to drink the water because that’s what’s causing their sickness in the first place and start building wells and water purification centers. I was always the one who was like, yeah- do that- do all that, but also figure out who is polluting the water and where it’s coming from and how we stop it and who else is affected by it- which I always thought was very clever of me. Look at me being all solutions oriented! I’m so clever! But now I find that none of us asked if they even wanted help, or that all these people who have gone to help just GAVE the help instead of teaching it and thus created dependency etc. and that some people are protesting outside of the UN buildings because they feel it’s a unique culture of mutations- even though those mutations come at a price- and you shouldn’t change it even if they want it to be changed because you’re just westernizing them, and that nobody is asking how they would like it to be solved and then I realize that in addition there are only a handful of people (really, just a handful) who even really WANT to help, who even care enough to actually do something and we spent so much time talking about it and looking at pictures and video montages made to switchfoot songs with pictures of young parents walking around with third degree burns and children stuck in trees and half the town in hospitals and sit there on youtube just FEELING instead of DOING that in the end we have wasted years and millions and are so exhausted from listening to a group of 5 young people present on what they did in a week long missions trip where they passed out nutrigrain bars and heating pads and they tell the funny story about how one of the boys dared the other one to stick his toe in the water and he did ohmygoshcanyoubelieveit and he swears it felt tingly and they all cry-even the boys, oh my- when they tell us about the hospitals all full with people and we are so proud-just so damn proud- that we feel like we’ve done something too and wasn’t that exhausting, helping all those people, and so in the end after all that work talking and arguing and feeling we just figure we’ll send them some bottles of Aquafina and be done with it, since House is on tonight and I just love watching that show.

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And I kept asking myself that at the library “Well, just find an article about what you care about. What do you care about?” and I couldn’t think of anything. I’m serious. I couldn’t think of one issue that I particularly cared about. All I kept thinking was “I like people. I care about people. And communities.” And then I would respond, “yes, well that’s all fine and good, but it’s not particularly helpful for this assignment. Are you even listening to me? Get off Gmail and listen, you have to get this done.” “Uh huh.. . sure… “ I respond, clicking vaguely and typing words into databases… “let’s see what the word ngoization brings up.” Or “Oh! Let’s see what human rights fads will get me… that sounds interesting.”

And I realized, as I later explained in some length over tuesday’s post-class beer to Dave- a classmate who is very quickly endearing himself to me by his ability to convincingly act enraptured as I talk at length about topics that are really not that interesting and often unthought through- that I think the problem is I am not issue-oriented. I am community oriented. I think. Maybe. Or I’m just flaky. It’s a toss up. Either/or. I care about a lot of issues. I care about all the issues that might affect a community. For instance, I was reading a phenomenal book (I highly recommend this book to everyone, it’s a very easy read and possibly the best nonfiction book I have read recently) called Selling Olga: Stories of Trafficking and Resistance and came to a part where it was talking about a town from which girls often moved to work as sex workers and I started thinking about all the other issues in that town. What about poverty, hunger, unemployment, environmental problems, class issues, crime, inequalities, illness, various other forms of unfreedom? How do they interact? How do the problems overlap? Can the solutions overlap too? How can infrastructure, microfinance/microbusiness, sustainable agriculture, education (especially education), legislation, awareness, community rehabilitation, clean water, and accountability change the way that community looks? And I think… oh for pete’s sake, Kirsten, just pick one, because community oriented doesn’t really make a masters thesis, and furthermore, I’ll never know enough about all those things to be effective at any of them.

In the end I went back the next day and found two articles on the participation in voting in rural China. They are two articles, and they are on the same topic. I found them by searching the word “grassroots” and the both popped up in the first 12 suggestions so I took it. C-c-c-c-cop out!




update:
tl;dr version (part one): I frequently procrastinate by daydreaming of splendor.

tl;dr version (part two): Pollution= blue hair, fire breathing babies, dirty old men with laser vision. OR sometimes I get frustrated with things.

tl;dr version (part three): I like people. I don't like studying.