On Self-Condemning Ideals and My Wish for Redemption

I am inspired by the Blue and White article featuring the accomplishments of a certain Columbia student, who is a former slam poet from San Francisco, and who is now deeply involved in issues concerning immigrant and migrant worker rights.

That's amazing.

I come from a similar background, and feel that I have lost my roots, or perhaps was never heartfully involved in the matter of social justice and human rights. All the workshops that I went to, all the programs I've been involved in, CYI especially - I feel these ideals were never very deeply lodged in me. I have been involved in many activities throughout high school, but maybe only for the purely selfish motive of promoting myself in college applications. Maybe the do-gooder in me is only as good for the world as greed is socially beneficial in a market system.

So I want to open my mind a little more to the world: the poor, the needy, those for whom I claim to be securing a privileged education, the people I want to help when I graduate.

Do I still want to do this? Or have I blackened totally to the temptation of investment banking and the evil (but oh so golden) side of my nefarious major?

At the end of my Theoreticals class, Professor Burgstaller said to me in a brief conversation regarding Smith's conception of productive and unproductive labor: "the economic surplus allows wasteful people like Wallstreet Workers and Lawyers to survive." They are the waste of society. Yeah, who needs them? Some economists disagree. I, myself, am not sure.

In French class, when the SIPA students speak, I'm lost. I have nothing to say about current events because I haven't read the news lately. I guess maybe I've never really cared about any of the issues, or I would, at least by some urge of curiosity, have taken the time to figure all the stuff out. What the hell is going on in the Middle East? Words and terms I do not know. Newspapers I do not read. I am living in a bubble!

I am displeased with myself. I want to know what my world is made of. I want to know stop this self-important academic seclusion. I want to get out of this academic bubble and really see people for what they are, what they want, what they fight for.

I came into college thinking I knew what I was studying for: social justice, giving back to society, bettering my world. I am worried that I was never deeply committed to the cause. Well, I want to be.