Despite all of my cynical doubts of Obama, I'm kind of happy that he has won the presidential election. I'm generally disinterested in politics and this is perhaps the first time that I've been following anything that is political. Partly because I have to prepare for General Paper, but also out of interest. I don't think Obama is a representative of the black community. He probably grew up more in a white family than a black family, it's just the colour of his skin that makes him a black, but whether or not he is representative of the black community I really am not quite sure. He has quite an eclectic background after all, perhaps part of a generation in which the traditional lines are beginning to blur or are already blurred.
It's heartening, in a way, that finally, somewhere, somehow, some people have progressed. With the fighting in the Congo; the political conflicts in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Tibet; women dying in childbirth; much-needed hospitals being shut down in Africa; food shortage; economy meltdown; climate change; energy dependence; technology dependence; nuclear weaponry; terrorism and so on, the world seems overwhelming for the young generation. More chaotic than ever, and noone is teaching us how to cope. We have to grapple with it somehow. Perhaps these problems have always been there for generations but have only surfaced now due to the interconnectedness of the world. Sometimes it's depressing to read the newspaper, (I got smacked down for my GP essay when I say that hardly anything good gets to the news), but I do feel that way. I have periods of time when I just don't read any news and watch anime, drama series, read poetry, just to escape from reality for a while. So I felt heartened when I see a non-white getting such a huge popular support into the White House. Finally I can feel that somehow some people in this mess of a world have progressed from conservative and sometimes ridiculuous ideologies of racial and cultural differences. I don't know if this feeling can continue. Sighs.
Despite Obama's call for change, I have my doubts. Implementing change is not that easy. He acknowledges it himself that it will take a long time. My observation is that most people are uncomfortable with changes, be it for better or for worse. While some of us are afraid of change, some of us embrace change as a way to progress. I'm ambivalent towards change. But as a student of literature, reading all of the modern poetry, I get a feeling that people do not always like change. Change can be disorientating, it can strip you off of everything in that single moment. Unsettled. That's the word.
I hope that I can continue to have hope. It's not teenage angst, I assure you, and I know how the media can exaggerate things. But the fact is, these human disasters are happening right here and now in this world we're living in. I believe that as a human I should be in touch with the suffering of fellow humans, and to share the joy of fellow humans. Sometimes the grief overwhelms the joy, sometimes it's the other way round. But I shall always remember that when Pandora opened the box and all the bad stuff came out to play, Hope emerged too.
"I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow./ Th'heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass,/ The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad;/ I am acquainted with sad misery/ As the tanned galley-slave is with his oar./ Necessity makes me suffer constantly,/ And custom makes it easy." -- Duchess of Malfi, John Webster
-I did not suffer, I survived.-