It's All About Me

When I first picked up The Jungle, I was disinterested. Then once I got past the wedding and Jurgis beginning his life with his family in the stockyards, I started zipping through the pages till I hit the part where Jurgis's struggles and life evolved into a plea for Socialism, and there was no more story, but rather an outcry for social change.

To be honest, I am not interested in politics and social change. I haven't yet made ammends with myself or my surroundings, how am I to effect change on a larger scale? What really draws me in is the humanity of things, the practical, the here and now, the very power that clothes and feeds me and gives me recreational pleasure.

I suppose I think on a smaller scale, the "me" rather than the 6 billion people worldwide or the 300 million Americans. I can't relate to things too big for one person, I can only relate to the particular.

What really drew me into The Jungle was Jurgis's pathetic lot in life. It was almost a reassurance that I don't have it as bad as some, and if there is hope for a miserable hapless person as Jurgis, there is hope for me, because the story ended on a positive note, one I wasn't expecting, but a good reminder that if you stay strong, you will come to some good.

I just can't imagine a life of hard work and no fun, of horrible food and starvation, of stench and horror, of poverty and abuse. I am terribly pampered compared to these poor people. I think I shall read Hugo's Les Miserables this summer. I like profiting from others' sad stories, I'm a predator like the rest. I cannot deny myself of my animalism.

I too am contributing to the disparities in society. This past Monday, a classmate said that if we were all to live equally, we would live as the poor people in the Appalacians live. How horrible! I could never live below the life I'm living now. Am I to blame for that?--to be shown a life of comfort and then have that stripped from me so that the world can live equally and frugally with no hope of having a better life? Are we to blame for our consumerism?

I shop at WalMart though I have been warned. Why? Because I get stuff cheaper there. Do we ever put the general populace or affected populace before ourselves? Honestly, if you can go to a place that sells things cheaper than elsewhere and in some far distant part of your mind, you know you are profiting from another's labor, are you willing to put down your shopping basket and ban yourself from that store, while really, WalMart will continue to prosper with or without your business? Same with Forever 21, same with so many other places. If you were really the kind of person that put others before you all the time, you wouldn't be here, you wouldn't be alive, because the whole schemata of survival is to protect yourself first and foremost, so don't take the high road by saying you don't want to shop here or there because you care about people. You don't--you truly don't care about everybody. Since you care for yourself and your family, there is no way you can care for the rest of the world--there is not the time or energy or reserves and there is never the passion or zeal of humanitarianism in you unless you are some budding saint. And even saints cannot affect or help or tend to the entire world and be loving and responsible for everyone.

I don't believe in helping the world. I believe in helping ourselves. If each and everyone of us could get our shit together, then the world would thrive in harmony. We can only be responsible for ourselves. So to me, I like to read texts on a personal level, because the only thing I recognize in art or science is myself, how I can deal with the next the day and the day after, and the day that is my last.

Of course, I don't mean Stop the Philanthropy! What I mean is that we must recognize that by helping others in whatever small, big, or indirect way, we are really serving ourselves, our karma, our sanity, our equilibrium, our rest, our good night's sleep. But always, donations are beautiful, because they give both ways. What I'm saying, however, is that survival is based not on tending to others but on tending to ourselves.