And yet, we all have our own stories, and no one deserves to suffer in any degree. My strapping a band of sharpened wire to my thigh doesn't help any women who are risking rape when they collect water for their children; at the same time, I can live without a phone with a data plan and sponsor one of those same Congolese women.
It's impossible to compare pain; we all only have the frame of reference we've achieved. I guess I just wish there was a little more perspective, maybe? Awareness of one's privilege? Let's be real - any problem that can be solved with collages and affirmations is still a "first world" problem. It would be nice if Afghan women could "Secret" themselves into empowerment.
I understand being the change I want to see...the trick is finding out what that change looks like. Yes, be compassionate. Yes, be kind. But when it comes to the disparity of opportunity between my world and the worlds of the developing nations...don't Western people have a right to their feelings? Trapped is trapped, no matter what materials the prison walls are built from. Am I except from pain because I have indoor running water and electricity?
Maybe some acknowledgement of the privilege is what I want to see. The wannabe brave girls have enough money for the course and the materials...that right there would feed a lot of hungry kids.
Maybe it's just the excessive navel-gazing. They keep telling me that the way to stop feeling sorry for myself is to help someone else. Maybe that's what's missing - giving it back. Yes, feel joyful and fulfilled in your skin, but then help someone else feel good in theirs. The hero's quest isn't just about the destination, but about coming home to show others how to survive their own quests. At least, that's what I remember. Time to reread Joseph Campbell.
Thank the Maker for the Internets.
In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes about "The Adventure of the Hero:"
"The whole sense of the ubiquitous myth of the hero's passage is that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women, wherever they may stand along the scale. Therefore it is formulated in the broadest terms. The individual has only to discover his own position with reference to this general human formula, and let it then assist him past his restricting walls. Who and where are his ogres? Those are the reflections of the unsolved enigmas of his own humanity. What are his ideals? Those are the symptoms of his grasp of life." -- (Campbell, 121)
- Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction
Their summary of the hero's quest has 17 steps, the 15th of which is "The Crossing of the Return Threshold: The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world. This is usually extremely difficult."
Well, this has wandered away from what I thought was my point, and maybe for the good. If figuring it all out was easy, somebody would've done it by now.
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