So I often stop to ask myself what the fuck am I really doing with my life? I'm currently working as a campus aide and an aide in this program for kids with serious behavioral problems. I'm also volunteering as a teacher to immigrants studying for their citizenship tests and at this hospice, in addition to just having finished up a TEOFL certification class. On paper it looks like my life is pretty busy, and in terms of time spent staying busy I suppose it's true. However, my work is hardly satisfying, and I often catch myself struggling with the guilt of not being in Africa right now working for the Peace Corps. Moreover, my primary job as a campus aide can hardly be considered an educator, at least in the formal sense. I spend so much of my time simply passing the time in some constructive and some hardly constructive ways.
My existential dilemma is that I desperately want to make myself through my work. I want to take pride in my labor. I have no complaints about my current wages yet wages are insufficient. I want more. Marxist alienation festers on all sides. It nags at my self, and I can't help but feel like I'm succumbing to mediocrity as I idle away with visions of a more fulfilling, a more trying tomorrow.

So I want to go to Africa once again. This time around, my plan is a bit more refined in that I plan to teach english as a volunteer somewhere south of the Sahara. I know I can't save the world. I know that no matter how many good deeds I may do in Africa, Africa is still going to remain Africa with all it's systemic political diseases intact. Yet that is hardly the point of my plan, neither here nor there.

During my last semester at college I was exposed to two radical thinkers on the philosophical and political left: Georgio Agamben and Alain Badiou. Many times, Eske (my professor) would spur us to compare Agamben's notion of a slight alteration with Badiou's insistence upon the necessity of a radical break from the current situation. These two philosophies are hardly mutually exclusive, yet for a long time I couldn't help but lean towards Badiou's insistence on a radical break, particularly in regards to my own personal choices and lifestyle. So I figured going to Africa would do the trick, but when it turned out my trip to Senegal was not to be I realized that I didn't need to go to Africa to find myself or to help others. Fuck, the only thing that was stopping me from already doing both these things here and now was myself. The inertia of my past relationships and passivity when it came to actually living my dreams always seems to impede my deepest callings in life. Yet I need a consolation, so let it come not just in philosophy but in everyday events through which my peebles may be felt in varying degrees.

It's all about the little things: Smiling to a stranger, holding the door for someone, listening-yes just listening. No occupation is an exemption from this basic human duty, which if consciously performed becomes the upmost privelege. I never feel so alive as when I'm helping someone. The challenge is adjusting to one's environment just enough, but not too much, as to help someone on their level, and not one's own. Too often I help others simply at my own convenience. Ah, that makes me feel nice I just helped them out. Yet the deepest satisfication necessitates a struggle which can never be predetermined. As long as we know exactly what we have to do to help someone we are cutting them and ourselves short. Only by adapting to their needs as they arise may we share their journey, rather than simply their destination. This is not to say we can ever accompany them all the way, for such is impossible and if attempted actually self-defeating (i.e. overprotective parents). The point is to let them let you know when they need your help, that is, to make oneself as available as possible for aide and consol.

We live mighty busy lives, so I suppose the often boring nature of my job can be interpreted as a blessing in disguise. Sometimes I find myself wrapped up in a book, but the vast majority of a time, any opportunity to help someone is a great way to spend my time on the clock. The truth is I need to do a much better job making myself more accessible. I need to communicate more with people who would really appreciate my help. I'm beginning to realize that this job can't just be a means to getting my foot in the door of education, pleasing my parents and myself by staying busy, or simply a paycheck every two weeks. I plan to start looking for anotehr job which will give me more (more like some considering I ain't gettin a lick right now) classroom experience. Thus, while I'm still here I oughta make it count and make someone's day whenever I get the chance.

I want my intention to show and I won't know until I see it reflected in those I work with and for, but then again I never did trust apperances so I suppose I'll really never know. All I can really do is be persistant in living my deepest intention.

So I'm here, making my mark in some trivial (and I hope some not so trivial ways as well). The slight alteration is all I have for now, yet in every good deed I make a crack in the foundation of the conservative, passive and unconfident intertia of my actions. I so wish I could just run away, but I'm not their, not yet, and I must accept that if I want to stay sane and content.

I want to do so much more, but for now I'm just gonna shut up, cause actions speak louder than words, no matter how small they may seem.