enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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I'm hurting today.

WARNING: This is a grumpy entry. Go back one for my cheery entry for today!

You know, I've been thinking a lot about important things lately.

In part it's volunteering for that refugee organization.

In part it's the feeling that I've had for a long time that I've been wasting my time and money on things that don't have a great deal of meaning.

One of the things that bothers me in my everyday life is that I can see the child poverty rate rising. I wish I could be more detailed and forthcoming about this, but I am not permitted to talk about my work.

I need to make a change in my life. I need to be part of rectifying all of the gross inequities that still exist in this country. I'm not talking about eliminating poverty - totally impossible, of course. I'm talking about better primary education and health services for aboriginals on reserve. I'm talking public housing for the homeless. I'm talking, finally, national child care. And I'm talking some measures that actually productively counteract child poverty.

It's all wrong. And I know in my heart that I can do something about these things. I have the education and the intelligence to advocate constructively for solutions to these problems. So where do I go and what job do I take to do this? I need to think long and hard about this.

Volunteer work is good. I was thinking for a long time that it is good enough to do little bits in my life - be nice to the people around me, make a difference in my community. But no, it needs to be bigger. There is so much that is very, very wrong in this country. I know what is wrong and by sitting around in my comfy, easy life I am part of the problem. I'm a cause, even, of the problems.

One of the weird things about living in Ottawa is that I live in the rarefied air inhabited by people who are generally overpaid given their skills and their work. Ottawa is an artificial community like that. So there are a bunch of people here who make twice as much as most people do for similar-quality work in the rest of the country, and who have better pensions. So every day I walk around, take French classes with arrogant and immature people, have to eat lunch with others who think that they're so super-superior to everyone else/some kind of an elite. And it really annoys me, because I think that there has to be more that is important in life.

She probably doesn't realize this, but I'm quite envious of teranika's career at this moment. :) She's involved in research related to the world's climate change problems. To be a part of that community is an amazing thing. It's a powerfully wonderful way to live your life. I applaud her.

So what do I do? How do I best use my skills to do something worthwhile?

Become a senior bureacrat and then leave the public service to run for political office? Or do I join one of those ineffectual, semi-voiceless social policy think tanks? Do I become a journalist?

So much to think about.

I'm pretty tired of a lot of the things that I see around me. I'm pretty tired of a stupid culture that thinks that endless articles about b-list celebrities are worth reading. Why should I care about any of those people? Because they have good hair? I of course exclude those who are trying to do good art and who use their celebrity for good. :)

And whilst I'm on a rant, why don't I mention how tired I am of the idea that everyone has to look the same, have the same hair, look younger than their ages?

I'm at a point at which I want to look older. I want to look my age. I want to be different than other people. I want to be unique and valued just as nature made me to be. And I want to accept where I am as just fine and not needing to be altered.

I feel a bit crazy with the idea that we're all entitled to everything. If we're rich we feel entitled to have fertility treatments and have children into our 40s and 50s and 60s. Why do we think that this is a good idea? Why do we think that we should have everything that our hearts desire, when there are so many people around us who have basically nothing?

I was in the wine store the other night, buying wine for the party to which I did not go. There was an aboriginal man who came in and who laid his change out on the counter to buy himself the cheapest bottle of sherry that they had in the store. And he asked the clerk about the sign in the window re. "help wanted." The clerk basically discouraged the guy, suggesting that he could not use the register.

Sure, I appreciate that the guy is an alcoholic. But, really, there is so much that is so wrong with this. It made my stomach ache and burn and I wanted to crawl into a hole in my cashmere scarf and puffy down coat and beautiful apartment around the corner to which I was going to retire for a glass of wine.

"Unless you're lucky, unless you're loved..."

Sometimes it hurts so much to know that we don't care. We just want what we want for ourselves, no matter the cost to others. I'm sorry - today I'm grumpy.

2:53 p.m. - 2008-03-09

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