In the Relative Safety of My Home

Of course, a sense of safety, like all things, is relative.  

I know that many of my friends and former classmates who still live in Mexico live lives that many of my friends and colleagues here in the United States would consider dangerous.  They face threats that we do not face here.  Or, better said, they face threats that we can pretty much avoid should we choose to.  I do not drive into the South Side of Chicago at night for a stroll.  Likewise, I suspect that there are not many people from the South Side of Chicago driving into golf course communities in Naperville.  This is the nature of the world we live in.  That said, such situations are entirely avoidable.  Like I said, I don’t take the drive to the South Side.  Choice…situation avoided.

There are places where such choices would be considered a luxury.  In the United States, there are those who would argue that the choice I enjoy is not a choice for everyone.  Likewise, in Mexico, there are people who have little choice, and they are stuck living their lives confronting danger as part of their daily experience.  This is how many people live across the Earth, to varying degrees.

Yet, people continue to live.  Some merely survive, yes, but many live.  They seek to live full lives, experiencing the entire range of human emotions that you and I experience.  Sometimes, they experience the worst in others.  Sometimes, they experience the best.  Everyone experiences both along a broad spectrum that ranges from the lowest lows to the highest highs.  Take as an example this post by a blogger in Lagos, Nigeria: http://josephekwu.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/my-darkest-friday/.  Joseph experienced the worst of humanity a few Fridays ago.  His life was threatened at gunpoint, his possessions stolen.  Yet…a few posts later, he writes of his journey to a wedding.  A wedding.  Don’t you see?  Ups and downs; highs and lows.  The broad spectrum of human experiences.

I frequent Joseph’s his blog because he provides a perspective in my life to which I would otherwise be deaf, blind, ignorant.  Besides, he seems to be a good man, plain and simple.  I think Joseph just seeks to live his life with dignity, to the fullest, and share it with others.  How different is that from me?  Not much.  No, not much at all.

And how different is that from you?