Who wants to save the world?
Short musing on a childhood dream and its journey
Never have I felt so compelled to save the world. An urge that impels me to do something… and fast. An urge that isn’t helping me. And, very pretentiously, nor the world. A kinetic urge that paralyzes me in its magnitude and urgency. It blinds me to my path. To myself. To those around me. Millions of useless, wasted thoughts invade me and at the end of the day, nothing. Nothing done. Nothing accomplished. Frozen. An active apathy.
What happens in the world is overwhelming and it overwhelmingly crushes my mind, leaving me in a state of emergency without knowing what to do, how to respond. So many fires to put out. So many to prevent. So many to keep out. So large. So magnanimous for a single human being. Especially for one in such a tiny body, a microscopic drop in the immense ocean of mankind. Humanity.
A childhood dream — who hasn’t had it? — that has been following me, like a shadow follows its master, ever since I remember myself. Ever since, as a little child, I watched at night the infinite sky covered by shining dots piercing its darkness I so badly wanted to grasp. I dreamt of flying away — in this really cool spaceship, the front yard of my parents’ house being the bridge, my observation post — and go and do great things. Help. Save. Bring peace and harmony… In those moments, I felt so powerful. So hopeful. So proud. And I remember feeling even stronger and even more determined because I was a girl — in a time not that out of mind, you didn’t see many girls, heroines, saving the world, if any. I would be the first and, leading the way, I would be the best.
This dream never really vanished. It was delayed — I kept saying to myself it would happen one day when I would grow up — blocked and even hidden in a black box as the years passed by. Practicalities needed to be tended to, distractions popped up along the way… It faded. Almost disappeared. But then, once in a while, the lid opens, like now, and it emerges, and with it feelings of power, hope, joy, endless possibilities…
Back to now, to this place, and before apathy strikes, I close the lid. Or almost. What to do with this dream that doesn’t seem to let go of me? What if I cherish it, manage it in tiny baby portions, and use it to become a better person?… That might in itself be a contribution — infinitesimal of course, but still a contribution — to a better world. I smile.
Pictures: Berlin (DE), Reichswald (DE), Annecy (FR), Berlin (DE)
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