it's a.k.a. ambition

Okay. Fine. I think a part of it is vanity. Anyway, the most important thing is that I (re)learned today that I've become too detached to feel that I'm actually giving something or wanting to give. I used to be an empath. I'm not kidding. That's what you can become I think when you go through a Buddhist elementary and high school- all that hype about human suffering, it gets to kid's mind I think. I used to be super sensitive on human emotions. What ever happened to me?! Well, yeah, I went to college. They taught us how idealogies drive emotions, Foucault-inspired rationalization, etc, etc. I became me. Cool. But only for a some time. Whenever friends would share problems- which time and time again would boil down to how sorry they are for themselves- I would always berate them on all these psuedo-intellectual bullshit. I lost that initial response(intinct?) to actually feel for the other person- no matter how foolish or selfish his/her reasons for being lonely were.

Something happened that changed me. Yep, today I got inspired by a friend's kindness. I swear, her simple gesture of letting those 2 kids sit beside her in the train was something, well after telling me her story of how she didn't want them to feel how she felt when adults would bully her in the train when she was kid. Basta. And that's just one of her gestures. And her stories were wow- well besides the skull crack accident, of course (lol). Well, of course this led to further brooding here and there. And I thought I lost that, etc.

I thought this is most essential if I want to do what I plan for myself to do. Why not really see what's going on in the streets, in my own neighborhood, before reading all those heinous elaboration on world hunger, aids, etc- before all those abstractions. Why not look at the people sitting, walking beside you and think how would you feel if he/she is you? Yes, acting on this intial care may have have it's downfall. But, isn't this initial care the foremost element to removing pain and suffering? (Maybe it has something to do with exclusive spaces (hello? the hill?) we go to everyday. And no, I didn't watch Obama on Oprah's show?!)