So I was feeling pretty bummed that my trip went the way it did. Specifically that I was coming back early, that Melbourne and especially the place I was living was driving me crazy, and that I didn't see the things I really had my heart set on seeing.
I got a happy feeling as soon as I was on the second flight out of three to come home however. I realized that the trip hadn't been a total waste (of time, money, and career opportunities) but that I had indeed learned a few things.
So I am going to try to sum up the things I learned starting with what is specific to me and then moving more general to how I think society might improve. A big leap, I know.
So number 1, don't get caught up in the moment and just rush into things without really thinking them through. Pay attention to your finances and how you will have money say in a two months' time and CERTAINLY DO NOT get into a bad situation without at least one good friend to eat ice cream with you when you get depressed about the situation you got yourself into...
2. Don't count on someone or give your heart away to someone before you really know her or him, definitely do not do this twice in a row...
3. Don't get involved with a roommate (a duh...)
4. It's nice to be in a beautiful place with beautiful weather, but it doesn't mean anything if you are sitting alone in your room missing your friends and family.
Friends and family are super super important
ok now getting on to the stuff I thought was super smart of me at the time while on the plane that I want to take to a global level.
There are two things I learned/experienced first hand in Australia
1. The more desperate you feel, the more you will consider doing.
2. The less personally invested/involved we are, the less we care.
So in Australia I went to work on a farm, making practically no money, all because I thought Australia was so awesome and that I was going to want to stay there an extra year FOR SURE. I went to work on a farm, making $100/wk just to be eligible for my second year working visa. When I got back from the farm, I used the money I made to pay my $715 rent in Melbourne for a room the size of a closet. It happened to be the start of the summer holidays when I got back so no there was teaching work and I was going to be BROKE. I needed a job ASAP so I put this add up on gumtree. I said I was looking for babysitting/tutoring or waitress work. I got the creepiest responses and not one that was actually for a decent job. Time went on and I started getting really anxious and wondering what I was going to do. Then I started going through the responses I was getting. Would you like to model? Could I massage you for $50 dollars an hour as I need someone to practice on? Could you put on something similar to leggings and sit on my face? (I shit you not, i really got a message like that) and finally could you meet me in a hotel room, I will pay you $500-1000 an hour.
Wait... $500-1000/hr. There is no way I am going to do it but that is A LOT of money. The would cover my rent for the next month and I would be able to buy groceries. If i did that three times I could also go traveling AND pay my rent, and buy my groceries... hahah you laugh even considering it. But you know what? I wasn't that broke, I had family that would have supported me if I really needed it and I wasn't living on the street. It's not hard to understand that someone in a worse situation could be tempted to do it.
Which made me realize that if you get your average person into a shitty situation (or let them do it themselves like moi), and even worse, a desperate situation, you could probably get them to do all types of shitty stuff that they otherwise wouldn't consider doing. Shitty stuff such as selling an organ, a child, a body, a soul... you know. That type of stuff.
Then I got to thinking (this was all on the plane ride by the way) if we could get people into less desperate situations, there would probably be a lot of less horrible things going on in the world. No one is really going to sell a kidney on the black market for the hell of it, you know?
Now this leads me to point two. The less invested or involved we are in something, the less we see, the less we care. We all shop at Walmart or Target or whatever similar store you have because we want cheap prices and more often than not, we feel broke (or maybe actually are really broke). So we get all these clothes and stuff there and bing bang boom, we're done shopping and wearing the clothes and we're all proud that we got this bargain. Now we see that the clothes were made in: China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India or whatever other third world nation they might come from. Labour over there is cheaper which is why corporations go over there and most likely what you are wearing was made by a 14 year old girl in some sweat shop making 5 cents an hour. To which someone says "well better they have 5 cents than no money at all." Sure why not? I'm not even going to offer a counter argument. But the same person if told that they had to lock a 14 year old up in a room and get her to sew under the threat of her family starving or a severe beating, probably wouldn't be able to lock the 14 year old up or give her said severe beating. The same as how I could easily steal from a corporation and not bat an eye, (like when my roommate "stole" a plant from whatever store we were in and I thought it was awesome and carried it out for him) YET I wouldn't steal from a lady in the streets selling plants, or a farmer, or someone's mother (and I would have a fit at my roommate and not let him do it either.) Why? Because I care a lot more about an individual...
Or like how I could eat beef but I couldn't actually slaughter a cow myself... I'm going a little wild now but you get my point, what you don't have to actually do yourself, or what you don't have to see and can be ignorant about makes a big difference.
Where am I going with this? Right well the more involved people are, the more personalized things are, the harder it is to actually do something bad to someone. At least that is what I think.
Sooo what I'm thinking is that the world could be made a better place by doing two things:
1. Give people more support so they never feel super desperate
2. Make processes more direct, transparent and personal
Teaching people to really value community, to value life, to value compassion and kindness, basically to love I guess is what it comes down to.
Or I mean if you want to make the world a really bad place then do the opposite. Put people in desperate situations, make them afraid, make them not care about each other and then you could probably get them to do whatever you wanted really...
So ya just thinking about how easily I may have considered becoming a prostitute and how easy it was for me to assist in stealing from a corporation led me into all these thoughts.
I haven't slept in about three days so I could probably have formulated everything I am saying in a much better way. But this is what you get for now.
We should also understand that people's situation/circumstances play a big part in their values and how they evaluate situations/think/act.
Let's love more and help others out as much as we can.
