Friday, March 26, 2010

The 'Real World'

"There's a popular belief amongst anthropologists that you must immerse yourself in an unfamiliar world...in order to truly understand your own" – Anonymous

I have spent a great deal of my adult life travelling through and residing in the developing world. Bathing out of buckets, drawing drinking water from wells, shopping at the local markets, connecting with communities, listening to the locals, learning from them,laughing and crying with them. I immersed myself in their world and I am a better person for it.

Coming back to live in Australia – a country of wealth, political stability, freedom of speech and religion, a country that provides its citizens with infinite opportunities – was, and is hard for me. On arriving home people would continuously approach me asking "how does it feel to be back in the real world?", though all I could do is question if I really was back in the ‘real world’.

To me the streets lined with starving children, desperate mothers and unsure fathers who are all so grateful even though they are literally living hand-to-mouth, seemed extremely realistic. Looking around at home I felt empty and deflated as I realized that the very core of so many issues in the world is that we as humans have lost our humanity.

It has become apparent that many of us have become detached, desensitized and apathetic towards the overwhelming poverty, environmental degradation and the proliferation of bloodshed occurring across the world. Whether we are purposefully ignorant or simply unaware, being inactive on these issues reflects just as poorly upon us as individuals and as a society as it does on the perpetrators.

Despite having next to nothing, those that live in developing countries (which have often been ravaged by years of war) appear to have more soul, more heart and more hope than so many others that I have encountered. Ironically, these people also seem to be more aware and connected to what is truly important than those of us who live in more 'fortunate' circumstances.

In Western society it is easy to become consumed by the minutiae in life, magnifying issues that in the larger scheme of things don’t really matter. We have become so materialistic that our possessions actually possess us - we work to maintain them and to maintain a lifestyle we think we need. However, in spite of all its abstraction we seem to believe that this is the ‘real world,’ I but fail to see what is real about it.

To quote Christopher McCandless, it has become apparent that “...so many people live in unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future” (McCandless,1992). We make excuses and spend our lives trying to ensure we don’t lose this false sense of security. We reinforce fear and laziness, allowing ourselves to become the source of our own demise.

The solution is to understand that fear is universal, there are no ‘small’ fears or ‘big’ fears, no fear is greater than another; there is just fear. Once we take the personal edge off and realize that it is a perfectly normal and healthy human emotion, fear becomes more manageable, something that we can overcome and conquer. Once we achieve this it becomes apparent that we can achieve anything.

I will leave you with the words of the brilliant Professor Muhumad Yunus:

“Each person has tremendous potential. She or he alone can influence the lives of others within the communities, nations and within and beyond her or his own time.

Each of us has more hidden inside us than we have had a chance to explore. Unless we create an environment that enables us to discover the limits of our potential, we will never know what we have inside of us

But it is solely up to us to decide where we want to go. We are the navigators and pilots of this planet. If we take our role seriously, we can reach the destination we seek.”


- Kate

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