“Yet another gratuitous cruelty: the killer targets the most innocent, the people who would never steal food, lie, cheat, break the law, or betray a friend. It was a phenomenon that the Italian writer Primo Levi identified after emerging from Auschwitz, when he wrote that he and his fellow survivors never wanted to see one another again after the war because they had all done something of which they were ashamed.

“As Mrs. Song would observe a decade later, when she thought back on all the people she knew who died during those years in Chongjin, it was the “simple and kindhearted people who did what they were told – they were the first to die.”

It reminds me the feeling I got when I after I read a recent book by Aminatta Forna on her father – how in post-colonial Africa, good people were often killed by those hungry for power, and often with the backing of Western Governments. If there is anything that shows the depravity of modern society, it is this. We allow good to die, to suffer, and let evil succeed. We promote consumerism over caring, and recognize celebrity over compassion. How many celebrities do you know? Compare to that to how many people helping humanity you know.

We believe that economic growth precedes human rights, that development must take place first before dignity. Yet, in that process of “development” it is when we lose the best of humanity. Who were the 300,000 people who died when Idi Amin was in power in Uganda – the ones who stood up against injustice, or the ones who went along with his repression? Who are the ones in North Korean gulags today? Why is it the brave journalists who report the truth being killed in Russia, while the party-line promoters are getting promotions?

In China, the Dalai Lama, the most genuinely happy person that I’ve ever had the presence to see speak, is demonized and his followers, persecuted. Tibetans who follow the party line, and turn-in suspects to the Government, are rewarded with positions and power. The cultivation – and promotion – of evil, while good people are throw in jail, tortured, and forced into re-education camps just for their beliefs.

Where does good come from? I believe that the ability to be good lies in every person’s heart, but nothing cultivates that good more than being around caring, loving people. A strong, family, something that I’ve been blessed with, is essential to I am. I’ve also seen how people with abusive parents, or bad role models, have to struggle to find themselves. There are amazing exception, but too often, if you’re not surrounded by good, you don’t cultivate it within yourself.

If society demonizes and destroys good, if famines, war, conflict, and strife take the genuine people first, and leave only the selfish people, what sort of society are we building? If we keep destroying the small base of good that exists, then perhaps there is some truth to the right-wing argument that humanity is becoming immoral.

–

Another book I’m reading is “Carry Me Home,” by Diane McWhorter. Its a poignant, meticulously researched and detailed history written by the daughter of one of Birmingham’s white aristocracy, whose family was part of the machine of repression in the south’s most segregated city. Her ability to write something with such clarity about your own family’s place in a dark, terrible history is incredibly moving,

So there is hope – but only if we are really willing to tackle the darkest depths of our common history, as Ms. McWhorter is bravely doing. After graduation, I plan to do the same.

When I was 19, I prepared for my first big trip abroad, to study abroad in France. For me, it was the chance to finally see the world. I’d traveled abroad before – a few times, in fact, but mostly to the same place, India. Europe, then, was a great unknown. I didn’t know a single person on the entire continent.

My mindset at the time was a more raw, un-refined version of my mindset today. When choosing places to study abroad – my options limited as a Sophomore  - I quickly discarded all the English speaking countries. No Australia, no UK, no Canada, no Ireland, no New Zealand. Even then, at a basic level, those countries didn’t interest me for one sole reason – language. If I could be understood, could understand what was around me, it didn’t really feel like traveling. It didn’t feel like a challenge.

I was aware, then, of what I’ve now come to realize is my greatest fear. And language was its most basic construct. So I choose to go to France, over Italy and Spain, because neither of those offered me the option of living in a large city. For weeks before my departure, I was excited, attempting to learn French, looking up my street on Google Street View, reading about Europe in my AAA travel guide. I craved anything that proved how different France was from America. The difference, that was why I was traveling.

But at night, while asleep, my fears came to the surface. One dream I vividly recall was of me going to a radio station in Paris. There, I was greeted by a tall, French lady who spoke to me in flawless English, with a mild French accent. I can’t remember why I was there, only that I was disappointed that her English was so good – it made my attempts to learn French seem futile, pointless.

I sat to relax, and soon, one of her colleagues entered, also French, and they quickly gave each other cheek kisses, and said “bonjour.” But after that quick greeting, they quickly began to speak English too. I was terrified. French, it turned out, was being displaced by English even here in France. France was actually turning into America.

Dreams of that sort repeated themselves until I got to France and learned that French people still spoke French, though my deeper fear, that I could survive just fine with only English, proved to be prescient. In fact, it’s proven itself prescient almost everywhere in the world. Something of traveling – being forced to adapt to a different language, culture, way of living, as been lost.

–

Why, people ask, is this such a bad thing? The ability to communicate using a single language should be seen as a boon to ideals of world peace.  Don’t languages just divide us? And, as any traveler can attest, there are still vast cultural different around the world, and that appearances can be deceiving.  Uganda, my most recent international destination, took the cake as the most English friendly country, but at the same time, had a distinct, even flourishing, oral tribal culture unlike anything I’d ever encountered. So is my fear justified? Can’t universalism and heterogeneity co-exist?

The problem is how we value culture in our society, and the assumption that diversity naturally leads to conflict – a point with which I vehemently disagree.

In this world, minor differences become accentuated. In the south they say “y’all,” while in Canada they say “eh?” and that connotes regional difference, notwithstanding the fact that, just four or five centuries ago, there were completely different language, cultural practices, and spiritual beliefs in both places. That is forgotten and replaced by something far more artificial.

My biggest fear was starting me right in my face. It wasn’t that France would turn American. It was America – the Americas, the continent, not just my country – that represent everything that has gone wrong in the world.

English and French completely displaced all the native languages of the United States and Canada. Spanish and Portuguese have done nearly the same to the languages of Latin America. No place on the world has so much diversity been lost – and no place on the world do people seem to have so little awareness of this fact. Can anyone in New York City, one of the most culturally aware cities in America, name the first nation that used to live on the island of Manhattan just 300 short years ago?

That I can speak English in Los Angeles, and also in New York – that is my greatest fear. That what happened here will happen everywhere. That we haven’t learned from history’s greatest mistake. Hidden within all the rhetoric about modernity is the idea that, at some level, it’s a good thing that so much diversity has been destroyed here, and that its this model of forced homogeneity with emphasized symbolic differences that we are exporting abroad.

That one day, when I travel, to find what I’m seeking with require me to dig deeper and deeper, until I can no longer see what it is I want anymore.

I still dream. Of a world that values culture, diversity, as being equal, where consumerism is not longer the organizing principle of society. It’s still there. Paris opened my mind back in 2002. During my trip around the world in 2006-2007, I saw that the world had much to teach me. The problem is that us – here, in the developed world – are not really listening. We can continue to dance Tango, go to Yoga studios, eat “ethnic” foods, and consider ourselves worldly, blind to the fact that our actions are creating the world that we will live in. A world where small differences seem great, but the overall human experience is growing more and more dull.

Because besides our diversity, what else do we really have as a species?

“Such a long journey,” I often heard after telling friends how long our flights from New York City to Kampala, Uganda were – almost 16 hours by plane.

“It is,” I always responded, but, lately, with a wince. I’d just finished reading “Heart of Darkness,” by Joseph Conrad, about his narrator, Marlow, and his long journey up the Congo river to meet Kurtz, a representation of the depravity of colonialism. That journey took Marlow several weeks from England into Belgian Congo, a treacherous voyage, one that Kurtz himself did not survive. Compared to that journey, what was 16 hours?

I was also headed to Africa, like Marlow, not to the Congo, but near another much sought after spot that cost many lives. The source of the world’s longest river, the Nile. Many Europeans spent years on jungle treks, often at loss, seeking this spot which, today, was only a two hours public taxi ride from Kampala. Total travel time from New York – 18 hours.

The epicness of where I am, a place which was the driving force of so many dreams, adventures, and legends, seems utterly lost. The image of sailors, after weeks of hard journey, coming upon Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake in the world, where today, the cafe I’m sitting at plays American rock music, the television shows CNN, and everyone accepts American dollars. This evening, I’m expecting a phone call from my parents, their voices clear on my Ugandan cell phone, the distance between us cut down to nearly nothing. The majesty is lost, the magic, fading.

–

As I look at the pointed necks of the kingfisher birds diving into the surprisingly clear, crystal water, the gentle flow upwards towards South Sudan pushing longboat fisherman northward, I imagine another dream.

To sail all the way up the Nile, on a small boat, to see the amazing contrasts in landscapes and cultures. Tropical Uganda, the temperate Sahel, the Sahara and then the fertile Nile Valley. How grand it would be, to start here, and end in Alexandria and enter the Mediterranean above the same water that flowed out of this great lake.

And how impossible it would be.

The idyllic picture of the Nike view you see above is a human creation. Three months ago, the gently flowing river below was a raging waterfall, one that had flowed for thousands of years, crafting the rocks through the slow change of time. No longer – a new damn has shut off the falls, all in the name of electricity for development in a country that lacks adequate power. Along the Nile are numerous dams, which make my dream sail impossible.

Even if I could traverse all the borders, and get across all the damns, I still might not be able to make it to Alexandria. The increasing demands by rapidly growing populations through industry and agriculture are taking its tolls on the rivers flow. Often, the Nile fails to make it all the way to the ocean, instead, drying up miles before Alexandria.

In one way, yes, it is easy for me to come here, and see the source of the Nile. But at the same time, the modern world makes its impossible for me to understand what being here really means. The Nile I see before me today is only a facsimile of the grand Nile of the Pharaohs and the many kingdoms of Africa, a river that during its long, epic journey, flows across half of a continent, the birthplace of the human species.

In three days I’ll head back home, another 16 hour journey that distorts how far Africa really is from New York. I will try my best to grasp the distance that I have traveled. Somehow, I hope to understand my place, standing here, looking onto the Nile for the first time in my life, and the generations that have come before me, and most importantly, those that will come after me.

What will they see here? How will they relate to my experience here?

Comparisons are the unavoidable kick of travelers. Part of the quest of traveling is to gain perspective about the world, to understand it better. We see where we are through the lens of where we have been, our life experiences, which both cloud and inform our own unique perspectives. For all my travels, this is my first time in sub-Saharan Africa. Uganda, a country that I, honestly, knew incredibly little about before getting put on this project. It feels unlike any country that I have ever been to, a country made of a different breed.

Had I come here earlier in life, my impressions would be different. Such is life – a series of unique, personal and universal experiences.

With time, I’ve come to question the idea of place, and how it is defined. What is Uganda then? The name itself comes from a Swahili misinterpretation by the British of the indigenous name of the Buganda kingdom, which only makes up 20% of modern-day Uganda. It is a mix of over 20 ethnic groups, some with homelands, others pastorals, others migrants, put together almost arbitrarily by European colonial powers.

We’ve come to think of countries, and nationalities, as natural facets of human life. But is that really true? But what has struck me is the fact that Uganda, this made up country, an imposed nation-state, has such a force of its own today. This evening, I met a family, living in Kampala, the capital, but originally from the southwest of the country, near the Congo border. That border could easily have been changed, putting them on the other side – and their lives would be completely different. The arbitrariness of the borders, of the systems that colonialism created, are astoundingly powerful.

Colonialism also fundamentally changed Uganda in a different way than anywhere else I have been. It turned a mostly animist, and traditional religious population into one that is now nearly 90% Christian – many devoutly so. If Colonialism was so bad, but its the reason for the dominant religions in the country, then you can get into a lot of murky ground about whether colonialism was truly negative. And the truth is, nothing is every clearly negative. Nothing is ever so clear cut.

So I wonder, why does no one ever seen to question our system – our borders, nation-states? The first step to solving any issue in Africa seems to be to build the state – institution, laws, governance, community activism. First, we must prove the existence of a structure that has inherent flaws, especially here, where it was imposed through a system – Colonialism – that did little to build what we need today.

It is almost as if we are trying to prove colonialism right.

More coming soon!

But, to give you a quick preview, this is our midterm Prezi, and it gives a good overview of our project goals, and our field plan. Enjoy! And feel free to comment below with any questions, ideas, or more.

Either way, in three months, I’ll be finished. A graduate, an MIA, ready to take on the world.

At times its exciting to realize that I have no idea where I’ll be a year from now. At the same time, it’s terrifying how fast the past year and half has gone, accelerated by torrid pace of life in New York City, but also a factor of age. Once upon a time, a year felt like an eternity. Four months studying abroad in Paris felt like an extraordinarily long time, so many experiences, so much growth. A year around the world went by fast too, but the pace of change – new countries, new people, new memories – kept up.

Grad school was a different. I came to escape what was turning into a monotonous existence at a desk job – despite the fact that, compared to most similar jobs, mine was superb. But I wanted my work to match my dreams of being a global citizen and changing the world, and it wasn’t. But how? What did it mean to change the world? So to school I went.

Before beginning, I did a 10 day silent meditation retreat. I’d had a terrible fight with my then-girlfriend, a fight I now see as portending  the end of our relationship. The anger and resentment made it hard for me to get as much out of the retreat as possible, but I tried. What I got out of it, I now realize, is a far more clear understanding of time, place, and our own insignificance. It’s been terrifying to realize the vanity of even noble life goals such as changing the world or trying to become a famous writer to fulfill my own sense of destiny. No matter how hard we try, no matter how strong we build something, eventually, eternity will make all human actions insignificant, impermanent.

Does that mean everything we do is worthless, doomed to have no meaning over the long times scales of the universe? No. It just means we need to focus more on the now, and on each other, on the present and the actions we take at every moment. Grad school has encompassed this struggle within me, while at the same time, I learned about economics, sustainable development, earth sciences and the role of human institutions and the nation-state. And how so many things that we take as being intrinsic to modern society – citizenship, national languages, social categories – are really human constructs, and that the source of power is us, in so much as we allow power to influence us. Change can’t come from an individual but from us collectively, consciously and unconsciously.

I realize I don’t fit – anywhere – because I’ve felt that there is something incredibly unnatural about the “categories” that we have created – and now, I know that they are truly unnatural. So was grad school worth it? It gave me the chance to think, to learn, and to better connect with the world I want to be a part of. Where will I be in a year? I have no idea, but I can’t wait to figure it out.

Life is a perpetual learning experience – the only true source of power is knowledge. Not instinsic knowledge, but useful, actionable knowledge.

This semester has already proved itself to be the busiest semester ever. There are some good reasons, and a few bad ones, for why this is the case. Let’s start with the positives – Uganda!

One of the reasons that I choose Columbia University is that, instead of a thesis, for our final semester we have to do a capstone project. The projects ranged from Evaluating the risks of Rare Earth minerals, Land Tenure in Haiti, a Green Transportation analysis for the Sierra Club, and the mine.

Our’s is unique – it’s called “Avoiding the Resource Curse in Uganda” and it’s one of only a few that have a field travel component. Yep – during Spring Break I’ll be going to Uganda to see how well setup their institutions and governance structures are in order for them to manage and develop their oil resources sustainably.

It’s a project that involves a lot of sectors – energy, environment, economics, international institutions – which make it a ton of work, but incredibly fulfilling too, as I feel I’m learning applicable skills and practical knowledge. There are eight of us on the team, representing six nationalities, and everyone is pretty awesome. I’ll be posting updates on the progress of our project here, and also stories/insight from Uganda.

Besides that, job hunting…job hunting. Not as much as I should be doing, but still a big deal

* MIA = Master in International Affairs, my degree

I’m just about to finish reading Aminatta Forna’s book, The Devil that Danced on the Water. The book traced the author’s memories and search for truth about her father, who was killed in a shame trial in their homeland of Sierra Leone.

For three years, from age six to nine, while her father is in jail, her family is forced to stay in England. During that time she aches to go back to her home, feeling out of place, lost, in a foreign country. They aren’t prisoners, though, and do travel around Europe, and to America, but it’s an illusory freedom,

“There is good reason exile was once used as punishment it is a life apart, life on hold, life in waiting. You may begin full of strength and hope, or just ignorance, but it is time, nothing more than the unending passage of time that wears down your resilience like the drip of a tap that carves a groove in to the granite below. Exile is a war of attrition on the soul, it’s a slow punishment, and it works.”

As someone who often travels – some would say, self-imposed exile, grasping the meaning of exile is tough. To us, exile seems like a weak punishment, preferable to jail, or torture. The world is a such a large place, if I’m forced to be outside my home country, I feel it’ll be easy to find another place to call home.

Through her poignant, descriptive writing, though, I felt her longing, her aching, of being away from her place. Humans are a species that craves comfort, despite our new-found modern desires in today’s globalized world. Her father, when he returns from jail, ignores the advice of his friends and confidants to leave Sierra Leone. The few times that he goes abroad, he is always drawn back home? Why?

Even though I am a creature of globalization, someone who has trouble answering the questions “where are you from,” in Forna’s tale I saw a struggle I’ve often dealt with myself. Its no secret that I don’t like NYC, and I often tell people that I prefer San Francisco. But I also tell people that I don’t want to live in San Francisco in the future either. Why? I think that there are two ways to see where you want to be. One is to look, and search, for your ideal city, where you feel the most welcome, where people are interested in similar things to you. San Francisco is far more “my” city than New York. For most of my traveling life, I used to

Forna’s father was a moral man, who cared deeply about his country. He had, by chance, gotten the opportunity to study abroad, to gain an education that none of his siblings could. He took that education, that opportunity, and returned home to try and turn his country, newly independent and full of hope, into a better place. His soul was firmly in Sierra Leone. Exile, was, to him, the greatest punishment possible. It would be cutting off himself from his soul, from the country he loved and tried to help, first as a doctor, then as a politician, and lastly, as a businessman.

To me, though, what is exile? It would be being forced to live outside of my dreams, my passion. There is something incredibly powerful about a man, or woman, who is willing to sacrifice their life, as, sadly, Forna’s father ends up doing, because of their values. That is why I travel. To discover, and build, my own sense of purpose, one that will drive me to my goals. Despite my love of travel, in the end, I want to be someplace where I can make the greatest difference, where I can feel like a full human being. To take that away from me, my family, my home, my sense of place, would be the worst possible punishment. It may seem like a fine line.

I’ve yet to find my purpose, but I know I will.