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Solving for Variable Why
Wednesday, October 16, 2013 at 8:08AM One of the more difficult questions people have been asking me lately is, "Why the heck are you going to Africa?" Actually with my friends it's usually not heck.
The short answer is that I'm going to be creating a series of informational end educational videos on development efforts in the area around Mt. Elgon in Eastern Uganda. That's interesting and honest, but it doesn't really answer the question. I told you what I expect to be doing, not why.
Mt. Elgon, Uganda (left) is officially two feet shorter than California's Mt. Shasta near where I grew up. Maybe I should stack up a couple of rocks.
When there's a major disaster in the developing world the devastation can be immense. Sometimes tens of thousands of people lose their homes, their livelihoods and even their lives. When stories of these tragedies reach the industrialized world many people open their wallets and that's wonderful, but it really only helps with the immediate problem. The lack of education, jobs and many aspects of a functioning society are still missing. People will be hurt just as badly when the next disaster comes along. It is only by creating a functioning infrastructure and economy that a stable self reliant society can emerge. The videos I will be creating our going to help with projects involving healthcare, literacy and community leadership.
So that's why it's important for me to go. It still doesn't explain why I'm going.
I read an article recently about college entrance essays. One of the papers evaluators dread is what they call, The Missionary Story. They’re all about the same: they start with a young person going to some faraway place to work on a special project like building a school. They tell a couple of stories and then end with some variation on the phrase, "I went to Gwandonaland thinking I could change things for the people there, but the one who ended up changing the most was me."
A little gaggy, but reasonably honest. Traveling to places you've never been, meeting different people and doing something to help will certainly change the perspective of a young person. Adventures and new experiences are what build memories. But I’m not a young person, and my perspectives are fairly set.
Reasons aren't always easy to see even in ourselves. The other day at the airport I stopped to help an old woman who was struggling with some large suitcases. It seemed like the obvious thing to do, but I can’t really tell you if I did it because I was concerned about the wellbeing of a person I will never see again, because other people were watching, or just because I wanted to feel self righteously better than all the people who were just standing there.
From her perspective it didn’t make any difference why I helped her, she just needed a hand. I suppose I could have walked up to her and said: "Madam I can see you are having a lot of difficulty with those bags. I want you to know I sympathize with you in your pain, and I would be glad to help you, but I'm afraid I'd only be doing it to appease my own self righteous ego. So rather than interfere for my own benefit I think it more honest to stand here and watch you struggle."
Probably the greatest fear for anyone who works in the arts is not being exploited or even the harsh financial challenges, it’s being irrelevant. Making a series of web videos may not be the most creatively satisfying venture and certainly won’t be remunerative, but if they might help improve the situation of hundreds of people that means I’m relevant.
So, why am I going? Because I want to. Maybe I’m having a midlife crisis and this is cheaper than a Porsche. Whatever personal justifications may be going on inside my head don’t really make any difference. It's enough that the good gets done. Oh, and there's also going to be a total solar eclipse I want to see.
