Art of Who?

A blog is naturally a pretty self-absorbed concept: I'm going to write about things I find interesting and post it on the inter-web.

So, as I've established that this blog is about me, and things I want to talk about, write about, interact with and/or rant, cry, laugh, sigh, and shout about, I see nothing wrong with writing a blog about what I contribute to the world around me.

Weird mood, Kelsey? Ya.

I sat in a guest speaker lecture this evening about what the earth would look like if humans were to suddenly disappear from the face of the planet. It was a disturbing look at how we are ravenously consuming our planet and our resources, and the speaker urged us to contemplate the idea of reducing our birth rates for a generation or two, as a global society, in order to bounce back. As disturbed and shocked as I was by the general topic and his solutions, I was enveloped in a major self-reflection. He forced us to recognize how much of what we have designed as humans, our infrastructure, our art, our highways and subways, our homes, our written language, everything we create will fade in that world without humans, eventually consumed by the thriving earth left behind to recover from syndrome human.

Selfishly, the only strong emotion I came away with from this lecture wasn't my new found recycling plan, or the desire to grow and make my own food, but rather despair, as I reflected on what I will leave behind. What am I contributing to the world around me in a meaningful way, that will impact those around me even after I return to the dirt?

I am a historian, and deal every day with the names of people who DID something, good or bad, to remain relevant to people hundreds, sometimes thousands of years later. I read the news at times and wonder, which of these stories, these people, will last further than this moment, or the next, into a collective history, contributors to the story of humankind?

What will I give? Who will I be to people 100 years from now? A headstone? A memorial plaque? At 24 years of age, the most permanent contribution I have given to the world thus far is a facebook page and a blog that I occasionally write on. I don't have diaries and shoe boxes filled with meaningful letters about wars and hardships. I haven't written a best selling novel, or deeply imperative non-fiction reflection on the state of young adults hitting their quarter-life crisis. I haven't begun a movement like Save the Children, nor solved a world crisis or cured a disease.

Will I? Can I? Will it be enough to change the lives of students in minuscule ways over a 30 year career teaching? Will my potential children stop and reflect at the person that was their mother and think, yes, she stood for something, she left her mark, she did great things for people?

We have dreams growing up, of who we will be, who we might marry, what awesome job we might have, the freedoms of travel and having fun, exploring life and the world. Some of us never make it to that part of life. We die young, in tragic car accidents, or desperate self injury.
Or, we do make it, and we build up debt going to universities for degrees that won't give us much other than a 9-5 we hate, a mortgage payment, spoilt kids, overpriced SUV, acid reflux and two marriages. We'll die at 83, in a home filled with others in same deteriorated state, uncertain of who we are, and what we've left behind worth doing.

Despair is a terrifying emotion; especially in one as lucky as I am. I've never been hungry two days in a row, or faced armed conflicts in my neighbourhood. I have so much to be happy and thankful for. Yet is it enough? Brutal and Honest: NO. It isn't enough for me. It can't be all there is to my life. I will not settle for mediocre, everyday living.
I will go to the ends of this earth and back, I will fight for social change, I will use the voice and privilege I have to be more, do more, fight more.

How? When? In what way? Who will I help? I don't know yet. I just feel it in the pit of my stomach, that there is much more I can be.