In my most recent entry, I reckoned with a hypothesis on the spatiotemporal nature of a study abroad experience: you are removed in time and space from what can be considered your Reality and therefore are better able to reconsider that reality. Having this opportunity is wonderful and opens up so many opportunities for reflection and adventure that are sure to change the rest of your life. As I have sat here, watching headlines from the United States quickly flash before my eyes and disintegrate, I have come to realize that part of the joy that comes from this experience is the privilege of ignorance and indifference. Not only do the events of back home only exist in my periphery, but the events that unfold here are tucked away behind the ornate, attractive façade that is my experience.
Speaking with some of my friends who have traveled from the States to Australia, I have found that this condition is fairly commonplace. To be fair, who wants to spend their 6 months in the Land Down Under sifting through sociopolitical sludge? For some reason, I have ended up ankle deep in this sludge, especially with regards to the Refugee Crisis. It seems that every sphere I find myself in has made ties to this issue in a way that isn’t easy to ignore. The constant exposure to this content has taken my curiosity by the reigns and led me to places where I can explore these issues from a distance and yet still engage with the content. Once you begin to engage with these sorts of issues here, the façade of perfection begins to buckle as the buttressing is stripped of its utopian veneer.
The other day I went to a shopping center with one of my roommates, just for some visual stimulus, and after chatting for a while and grabbing some hot-n-ready cinnamon donuts we took to a bench outside. In between bites of these piping hot delicacies, we ruminated over the great atrocities of history and also of the great apathies to those atrocities. We wondered how anyone in history could have stood idly by as they heard about genocide. We questioned what it meant to get involved and how, while criticizing temporary facebook profile filters that seemed to promote the idea that that user was a good person, not necessarily someone who actually did something. Yet, as we spoke, I found myself shrinking as every word that passed through my lips wrapped around me in a cage of mirrors.
As I have chatted with new friends or engaged in conversation with new art, the knowledge that one day I will return home to my original Reality, lace up my boots, and keep going, keeps creeping into the back of my mind. This knowledge is both exciting and terrifying, and the more I engage with these deep issues, the more terrified I become of myself and my place in time. I grow increasingly uncomfortable where I set as I become more and more aware of my limited time and resources. I fight with myself as I remember that my version of ‘lacking’ is an oasis to someone else. I feel impassioned and I feel helpless.
Existing here, in Australia, I find myself meandering through the eye of a hurricane. Looking around and taking in my scenery, I am confronted with these moments that are crippling and terrifying, but that are so full of potential. The only way to realize that potential is to nourish it, in whatever way that may be, and refuse to accept a fate of indifference. As my therapist once told me, whatever you need to succeed is inside you, all you need to do is realize it and harness it, and then you are capable of anything.
Until Next Time…