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When asked what I was passionate about, I found it hard to answer and what I did come up with didn’t seem significant enough. The truth is, however, I am passionate about people and things that affect them: freedom and opportunity, tragedies–both natural and man-made, the every day things and the once in a lifetime chances. I think it would be appropriate to be compassionate and I could not tell you that I try because, the truth is, I try not to be sometimes. It’s all to easy for me to get swept up in despair because I cannot possibly help everyone or even know where to start.

To help alleviate this despair, I decided that I would stick to what I’m good at. Every day, I would make my loved ones smile and laugh and feel good about themselves and, in my head, these ripples of goodness slowly spread outward and perhaps, just maybe, touch every corner of the world. Nevermind that it’s a sphere.

And maybe along the way I will discover some way that I can contribute in more “significant” ways because I know that saying “I make people laugh” doesn’t exactly sound like ground breaking life’s worth. But don’t let me undercut what I do because I am damned good at it and if I died today, the people I loved would be sad because there life was better for having me in it, for having me to make them laugh.

And that is awesome.

Yet, sometimes, the reality for those who I can’t make laugh hits me like a ton of bricks. And I get angry. Or sad. Or a hysterical combination of both. Because I care. Because I am passionate about people in general, despite my sarcastic and biting sense of humor that may indicate otherwise. That is how I felt when I stumbled across the following:

There is a country where the leading cause of death of pregnant women is murder by a partner. In this same country, more than a million women were raped in 2008 and women are much more likely to live in poverty than men. Local laws don’t protect their right to bodily freedom and integrity; some rape laws even state that once a woman initially consents to sex, she doesn’t have the right to change her mind.

You may have caught on by now — yes, I’m talking about the United States.

– Jessica Valenti

average life span of a transgendered person is twenty-three years. The statistic is shocking, until it begins to make sense. Gender non-conformists face routine exclusion and violence. Transgendered people are disproportionately poor, homeless, and incarcerated. Many of the systems and facilities intended to help low-income people are sex-segregated and thereby alienate those who don’t comply with state-imposed categories. A trans woman may not be able to secure a bed in a homeless shelter, for example. Spade writes that just as the feminist movement tended to “focus on gender-universalized white women’s experience as ‘women’s experience,’” the lesbian- and gay-rights movement has focused primarily on a white, middle-class politic, centered on marriage and mainstream social mores.

— Meaghan Winter for Guernica

The good news is, there is good news.

Google has stepped up and created a Person Finder page for those who may be missing in Japan. I personally clicked over and stumbled across an entry for someone looking for information about someone in Misawa. I left a little blurb to inform the poster than Misawa AB has reported no deaths or serious injuries. It’s really hard for me to read about what is going on over there right now. It just hits.. a little too close to home but I hope that I have helped.

And despite the political turn that has occurred, people like you and me are stepping up to help others. Like this Tumblr user who want to give rides to women in Virginia who require an abortion but must now travel out of state for the service. Or this user who says (and I paraphrase) “You know what? Abortion isn’t for me but I respect the life of the living as well as the yet-to-live.”

Pro-choice is not pro-abortion. Pro-choice is often far more pro-life than “pro-life” is. I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who thinks abortion is just fantastic or the new perfect birth control, that’s not how it goes. If you really want a lower abortion rate, put your time and effort into education and health care (you know, programs like Planned Parenthood). No one has any right to tell a woman what to do with her body or anything that’s growing inside of it. No one has any right to put women in danger for a group of cells, especially a group of cells they will later ignore and expect to fend for itself.

— SkyWritingg on Tumblr

Also, this guy is awesome:

Recently, I was reading Joana’s thoughts about how we, as a country, need to stop ignoring our own internal problems while we throw resources at others’ problems around the globe. I felt conflicted emotions about this issue. On the one hand, I believe there should be a way to be a good neighbour and help others in their times of need but, on the other hand, I do not think that out own unfortunate populations should be forsaken to do do. The comment I left reflected this, I hope.

Well, I can’t say abandoning the world is going to help but you know, maybe international relations can be on a hold a while when we figure out our own shit. I’m sure there’s some sort of a balance to working at home and helping out the neighbours and even those across the globe. But it’s probably a pretty difficult balance.

Afterall, being friendly isn’t a bad thing and we can’t exactly wait until all our problems are solved as anything with people will always have problems.

Still, completely ignoring the homefront just to impress president or PM of country X is pretty lame. I think it does have a lot do with the fact that much of the national issues are “supposed” to be taken care of at the state level (or are pushed down to that level so the federal government doesn’t have to do anything, maybe?) whereas international efforts are federal.

I thought it would be left at that but, as luck would have it, my aunt forwarded me a link to JK Rowling’s Harvard Commencement speech and I also took the time to read the speeches of other prominent figures, such as Bill Gates and President Bill Clinton (during last year’s commencement).

Many of these speeches focused on the fact that Harvard graduates have a unique opportunity given them by their education, that perhaps they will be more qualified to solved the ills of the world. Many of these speeches focused on the problems abroad that we, as a modern nation, are more equipped to deal with than those experiencing such pains. This was a strong theme when Bill Clinton discussed his work with AIDS, especially in Africa.

I find this work to be admirable and selfless. I know that millions of people will see another day or another 20 years because of it, sometimes because of simple medicines that Americans and others in modern countries take for granted. I absolutely think someone has to do it and why not you or me?

But where do you draw the line when it comes to giving a helping hand at home or extending that hand outside your domestic boundaries? How do you even begin to go about deciding where to draw the line when it’s so easy to slip to either side; focus too much on home and you’re selfish to the point of self-detriment, focus too much on the outside and you’re selfless to the point of self-detriment.

I absolutely believe that if you have the power, the resources and the technology to help, you should help. We should help. In Africa, in China, in India. I also believe these efforts go a long way toward global relations and respect and, of course, peace.

But why does international effort seem so much more heroic, more noble? Indeed, there are issues on the home front that need our attention: obesity, education. government spending/funding, education, homelessness, unemployment, the economy in general. Is it perhaps that even an American most afflicted by these controversial issues is still so much better off than someone in a third world country with AIDs? That, perhaps, the most unfortunate American is still better off than the most pampered non-American?

Or perhaps selflessness is simply expected of America because she is the world’s last standing super power regardless of the nobility of the acts themselves. And why not lead the way for others to follow, to be inspired by our selfless acts? Surely by doing and teaching this, we are only helping our own citizens.

The balance is a delicate one and while there are decisions made by my government with which I do not agree, I cannot condemn the efforts because of solely those arguments. Society is, afterall, an evolving process.