At first, I wasn’t going to write a column; however, I now feel it is imperative I use this platform (however small it may be) to talk about the need for action and overall awareness within our community. There are a seemingly infinite number of issues that are simply out of our control, and while the internet has conditioned us to feel as though we are responsible for atrocities happening across the world, the fact of the matter is we can’t always be. The despair we feel bearing witness to every tragedy committed everywhere all of the time only pushes us to apathy and detracts from what control we can exercise within our sphere of influence.
There’s a lot about life I’m still unsure about; I don’t think I’ll ever be certain of much besides my own experience. Frankly, I feel like anyone who says that they “know” any one thing about anyone besides themselves is lying. That being said, I’ve noticed that most of the time the notion that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” holds fairly true. At the end of the day, most of our influence over world politics is minimal. We may hold the illusion that our thoughts and actions can singularly change the world, but for the most part, this is a false notion. The same issues that exist on a global scale exist within our community. There are people with abundant wealth and power who, for the most part, operate unregulated at the expense of those without influence. I don’t believe this is entirely the fault of those with the power—I think it is moreso the fault of human nature. Still, we need to acknowledge those inherent flaws in humans, and we need to use what power we have to balance the scales.
I don’t mean to suggest that we are incapable of spurring change on a global scale—we can—but we’ll never be able to solve every issue that plagues humanity. Yes, it is crucial to pay attention to current events around the world, but not at the expense of our sense of impact and our hopes for the future. We must not allow the helplessness we feel when confronted with the overwhelming amount of injustice around the world to stop us from pursuing justice within our community—to do so is to give up control completely and submit to a world that will only grow progressively more oppressive.
