Yesterday I came across something I wrote about a year ago. It was a news piece I wrote from the Kenyon newspaper in response to the Haiti earthquakes last year. I ripped it off a couple articles I read, but it's not bad. And really, I rip everything I write off something else. If I could write it over, I'd do it differently, but it definitely took me back, and I thought it might be fun to share here:
About 20 years ago, an earthquake registering as 7.0 magnitude hit one of the richest cities in the most powerful country in the world. Just a week ago, another earthquake registering as 7.0 magnitude devastated the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco, Calif., left 63 dead and an estimated 10,000 homeless. The 2010 Haiti earthquake in Port-au-Prince has, thus far, left 200,000 dead and an estimated 1.5 million homeless. The term "structural violence" explains the ways in which social structures put certain groups in harm's way. Some such social structures include racism, sexism, heterosexism and nationalism.The disaster in Haiti was unavoidable, because technology to prevent earthquakes does not exist. The level of poverty at which most Haitians live, however, was certainly preventable. The infrastructure in Haiti was horrible even before the recent earthquakes and could have been mistaken for that of a country recovering from a crisis. Haiti has only two modern airports, while its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, has nine international airports. Only ten percent of the city dwellers and a paltry three percent of rural inhabitants have access to electricity. Roads in Haiti are notoriously unreliable; they have potholes large enough to be actual roads, so they are not capable of handling large construction vehicles such as trucks or bulldozers.
Now, after the earthquake, the situation is dire at best. Because of the lack of infrastructure, there are not enough medical supplies to go around. Even the simplest necessities such as routine antibiotics, rubbing alcohol and blankets are in high demand. Thousands of patients who need immediate medical attention are being ignored. The clinics set up for emergency care resemble war zones; surgeons are operating without anesthetics and using rusty hand saws sterilized with vodka. Dead bodies are being shoveled into dump trucks due to the public health risk of rotting corpses lying all over the city.
A non-profit called Partners In Health (PIH) has been right in the thick of the medical situation. Since many aid groups were located in Port-au-Prince, PIH's rural location made it uniquely able to respond to the earthquakes. The World Health Organization has put PIH alongside the Haitian Ministry of Health to take charge of the Public University Hospital because of its long history in Haiti. The PIH's current focus is a two-step plan to set up makeshift clinics in Port-au-Prince by moving in materials from PIH's rural facilities and to establish a supply chain through the Dominican Republic to bring in medical supplies from the U.S. PIH does not consider itself a charity group, but a collection of people who live within communities to build healthcare systems and promote solidarity.
Despite these unimaginable conditions, the spirit of the Haitian people, as always, is still alive. They have been through hurricanes, enslavement, colonial oppression, foreign army invasions and homegrown tyrants. According to doctors working on the ground, Port-au-Prince is empty. No police or United Nations forces are around to keep order, only regular people helping other people out. The co-founder of PIH, Paul Farmer, said, "The Haitian people have a lot to teach us about climbing out of hell."In the face of such dismal circumstances, it is easy to feel helpless and act passively. There are, however, many things one can do. A first tangible step is simply to learn something about Haiti. It is difficult to expect to help anybody if you do not care or know anything about them. You could read the works of Edwidge Danticat, a 2009 MacArthur Genius grant recipient and is a novelist who specializes in the narratives of the Haitian daily life experience. One of her most well known books is Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories that was a National Book Award nominee.
Abstractly, I would encourage you to start simply and consider the words of Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
from ken
PS - I have to add this in, have you heard anything about Haiti in the past 12 months? This is the world we live in.
1/29/11
http://www.kenyoncollegian.com/2.14787/support-haiti-relief-1.1925728#.TjSZqm-ktIc.email
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The ever-popular NYTimes columnist David Brooks had a hit column a while ago called, “It’s not about you.” To summarize: the traditional sequence for recent college grads is to find yourself, and then go out and do something. As a counterpoint, Brooks suggests that life is about going out and doing something, and finding yourself in the process.
It made me think about my own dreams. I was recently browsing through OHSU med school’s blog and I saw they had a series entitled “Why I teach.” They were interviews with OHSU professors well-known for their commitment to teaching. It reminded me of my goal to mentor/teach, partly because my dream is to empower people who are passionate about their own dreams, but mostly so I can tell people what I think about life.
I attended a small liberal arts college where the professors deliberately chose a teaching-focused career, and now I attend a growing church that invests a lot of energy into developing leaders. Between the two, I feel like I’ve been spoiled. I can remember three professors from Kenyon in particular, that brought three different positives to teaching that I would love to emulate.
One was Chris Gillen, a biology professor I had for several classes. Despite teaching at Kenyon for years, he maintained a contagious enthusiasm during his 8 AM lectures that made it much easier to learn something, and actually stay awake.
A second was Joan Slonczewski, my research mentor who always went the extra yard to give her students experiences to move them forward beyond Kenyon. You could tell she just wanted to help.
A third was John Hofferberth, a professor I had for six grueling semesters of chemistry. The best part of Dr. H. was that even though he loved chemistry, he knew the students in his classes were not there because of their shared love for chemistry, but rather to excel at standardized tests. I admired his effort to prepare lectures, grade exams, and in whatever way train the students to get out of the classes what they needed.
My favorite part of all these great professors was that they understood their crucial role in the education process. They knew that whatever the students learned at Kenyon was not the ultimate goal of their education. But at the same time, they had developed a keen understanding for how to reach students, and help them get exactly what they needed out of Kenyon. Maybe for a pre-med student in Orgo, it was to excel on the MCATs. Maybe for a pre-scientist, it was getting hands on research experience as an undergraduate. Maybe for a confused 18 year old, it was simply to be enthuiastic about life.
Anyways, seeing these great professors has really inspired me to love mentoring. Working on all the med school applications, the most common question is: Where do you see your career leading you?
And of course I have no idea, but I know I love academic medical centers. I have spent some time working at the behemoth of Harvard med school, as well as the smaller but still huge OHSU. Walking around these centers, I love seeing the nursing students, the physicians-in-training, the young scientists. Though these people are adults, as professionals, these people are almost infants, and I love the parent-like training role of leaders at these academic medical centers.
I think that parent-like role is fundamental to the balance of life. Start out being trained and taken care of, and then as you learn more, teach others.
from ken
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I’m going to make a bold prediction. The last time you asked someone how they were doing, they told you one of these three things:
A) I’ve been busy.B) I’m tired.
C) Both.
Thanks to the industrial revolution and the advent of iPhones, the modern world is dominated by multi-tasking and efficiency, which is great for mass producing TV’s and hot dogs, but it makes for a bunch of tired people. I figured the solution, of course, must be rest. So I posted a couple months back on wanting to get better at taking rest… and as you might expect, I’m still terrible at it.
The last few weeks, I’ve been super tired. The days in the lab have been longer, and nothing’s been working, so it leaves me drained and demoralized. The med school applications are piling up in my gmail inbox as I procrastinate further by writing this post instead. I also recently moved, so the packing and unpacking has been stressing me out. I know, I know, cry me a river, but really between all of it, I’ve been feeling like I have no time to myself.
When I’m tired like this, I just want to be lazy. I want to completely shut off and do nothing. But I think shutting off like that is a little bit like dying.
That’s what Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace argued. These are two men who became powerhouse novelists through their attempt to make sense of the word by writing. They philosophized about life on a pantheon level. And on top of that, they both gave commencement speeches at my alma matter, Kenyon College.
Franzen gave a commencement speech called, “Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts.” He argues that modern technology makes people passive. People would rather sit on facebook and follow their digital friends or watch porn than go out and form messy but real relationships. It's a hell of a lot easier to have virtual friends that never ask anything of you, ruin your plans, or make you look stupid.
Wallace spoke five years ago on a similar topic, explained via parable:Two young fish are chatting along and swimming through the water, when an older fish swims past them, and asks them, “Howdy boys, how’s the water?” and continues on. Later, one of the two young fish asks the other, “What’s water?”
He was asking everybody in that Kenyon audience to turn their heads away from their iPads and pay attention to the world. He knew that the more you pay attention to the world, the more apparent it is that the world isn’t about serving your own personal needs.
I had a friend ask what he thought was the greatest problem facing the world. I think the world got confused about the meaning of the world. Everyone is convinced that the world revolves around them, but actually, when we die, the world goes on.
Franzen and Wallace both came to a similar conclusion: good things take work. Technology might have deceived us into thinking that we don't have to put work into relationships, but how satisfying is it to watch a funny TV show or a friend's blog post? I know I've never sat on my porch at the end of the day and thought to myself, "Damn, I watched some hilarious TV shows today."I don’t mean we aren’t “working” enough, as in we aren’t filling out our days with impressive to do lists. I mean that society as a whole is not paying enough attention to the water around us. We’ve stopped appreciating our best friends, making small talk with our Trader Joe’s cashier, or looking out for that beautifully optimistic dandelion sprouting out between sidewalks.
It takes a hell of a lot of work to always pay attention, sometimes it hurts. I know when I when I’m having a bad day, I’d rather ignore everybody else and sulk away in my rotten mood.
But why turn inward?
Is it really easier to get through life if you turn off the surrounding sounds?
When did life become about comfort?
from ken
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Atlas Shrugged spoiler alert
“In fiction you can pose a question, but you dare not answer it.”
- Anton Chekhov
I finally finished Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which is over 1000 pages. I started reading it back in February, and I’ve spent roughly three to four full days reading it. It was a serious hinderance to my goal of reading 50 books in a year, and my new plan is never to read another book over 300 pages. That said, Atlas Shrugged was truly a beautifully crafted novel.
There are several writers that I highly admire, including: Christian author Donald Miller, sports columnist Bill Simmons, pop psychologist Malcolm Gladwell, author of Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert. Reading them makes you feel like you’re having a chat with your buddy, thinking, “Hey someone else feels just like me!”
When I read Malcolm Gladwell or Bill Simmons, I think, yeah these guys are hilarious and amazing, but I could dream about doing what they do. Accordingly, I’ve crafted my writing after these guys. The pop culture laced title to this post screams Bill Simmons. However, Ayn Rand is just on a whole different plane of writing that I can’t even wrap my head around.
She develops several complex characters through a thousand page journey, and creates an incredible page-turning sensation that I have never felt before. Having read about three novels in the past year, I am comfortable calling Atlas Shrugged a literary stalwart.
Anyways, as Chekov’s quote explains, fiction is meant to raise questions and conversation, not answers. So what is the most relevant conversation raised by Ayn Rand?
First, some background on Atlas. Rand’s words: “This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world – and did… It is a mystery story, not about the murder of a man’s body, but about the murder – and rebirth – of man’s spirit.”
Atlas is set in an industrial era when the government is worried about business giants getting too rich. They try to place restrictions on these businesses, but in an act of rebellion, the business leaders leave the world to create their own Atlantis-like community. There, they build a pursuit-of-greatness utopia with only the greatest minds. The world is left without these intellectuals and goes in a tailspin.
John Galt is the man who started the Atlantis-like community and stops the motor of the world by depriving the world of all the great business leaders.
I could easily write five blog posts on ideas I had about Atlas, but here I’ll talk about Galt’s victory.
In my eyes, the greatest accomplishment of Galt and his followers is that they break free of societal constraints. They have no qualms stating that they are out for their own greatness, and they will not stand for a government that limits them in any way.
I can see the left wing/humanitarian argument building against this: life is about sacrificing for the whole, the rich shouldn’t be greedy. Arguments I’ve tried to make on this blog. From the one who has been entrusted with much,
But Galt had it right. Life is about being real.
Last winter I read a book by self-help/addiction expert Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection. The short summary: Brown has found that the most satisfied people are not afraid to be themselves, and believe that they will be worthy of other people’s acceptance despite their flaws. Ie – drug addicts are not defined by their addiction, friends are not defined by their selfishness, etc.
So, who is John Galt? Galt is a man who stood in front of the world, and asked them not to be ashamed of themselves. Society might say drug addicts are uselss, or that it’s wrong to be out for yourself. Society might be right, but I don’t think I am at any point to judge what is and is not wrong. I think Galt and Brown are in the right camp. They just want people not care so much about what other people think, they just want people to be themselves.
from ken
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"Happiness is only real, when shared."
So for those of you that haven’t heard I recently got engaged to be married. Someone asked me the other day, “Do you mind if I ask why you chose to get married?”
I thought that was a good question, so here are some thoughts I had on relationships.
I have to admit, I am still a skeptic on marriage. That said, I am a full on believer on relationships.
For those friends who have been here for thick and thin, I assume you already know this, but I like friends. If I had to define myself as any one thing, I would say this about myself: I am just a person, who at one time, wanted to have some friends and tried to go out and make some. The rest of my life is just little details.
Sidenote: Friends is my most common label on my blog. And here are some posts I had on friends:
I'm gonna soak up the sun
Same as it ever wasNew writers
All my friends (probably my favorite)
Thinking back on my friends from Needham, my friends from Kenyon, my friends from Wyoming. I miss them, and I love them, but the frustrating thing is that none of those friends are a part of my life now. Sure I talk to them every once in a while, but I don’t get to engage with them on the day-to-day scale. Basically, I don't get to sit with them, drink some coffee or Guiness, or eat an entire can of Pringles in fiftenn minutes, and talk shit about life, which is really all I ever want to do.
Here in Portland, I’ve been working on building relationships, and it’s been great, but even here in grown up life, inevitably, people move, people take new jobs, people attend new schools, some people just want to uproot their lives. On top of that, in about a year, I’ll probably be setting up a whole new life somewhere else.
And after that, I’ll probably move again two or three more times. And every time, I’ll have to uproot my entire friend support system, say good bye to another batch of friends, and struggle to meet more people that I can become friends with. I’m assuming this doesn’t get easier with time.
So I guess I think of marriage as a kind of agreement. It’s like making a friend, but with the agreement that you’ll be friends forever.
You’ll have the courage to be honest and confront problems you have, forever.
You’ll get on each other’s nerves over little things like the way the towels are folded, forever.
You’ll have fun playing together, forever.
You’ll just enjoy sitting together talking about the minutia of life, forever.
And I guess that’s what I wanted. I just wanted a friend that would be willing to put up with me, and spend time with me, forever.
from ken
Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
