“Why?”
“Just, I say so.”
“But why?”
“O shoo. Why why why, away you fly.”
It always ends like that, without explaining anything.
Salman Rushdie, “Shame” Chapter 10
I am, fortunately and unfortunately, painfully aware of the stark discrepancy of the perceptions of who I am as a person and the perceptions of what it means to be a Peace Corps volunteer. In physical form and in general ethos, I am an athlete, and a guy’s guy. I like drinking beers and carousing, spending days on the couch, staying out late. Before I started dating my lovely girlfriend, I very much enjoyed chasing girls around (in a respectful manner of course, preface qualifier disclaimer). I’ve always been a young man, just doing Young Man Things, and I would be lying if I said I haven’t always had a lot of fun doing it.
And when one thinks of Peace Corps volunteer, what do they generally think of? A do-gooder, a crunchy type, an activist, a Facebook profile picture strewn with the latest political cause du jour, and, dare I say it? Maybe even a hippie. Am I any of those things? Perhaps it is up for debate, but I don’t think so, and I don’t suspect that many of you think so. So why I am I doing this exactly?
Well, it took me awhile to work that out. I wish I could say my causes were pure. I’d love to have the standing to climb up on my soapbox and tell you about the ills of the world and how I plan to personally address and fix all of them. But that wouldn’t quite be true, because after all, I’m just a human being like you are. My reasons are as varied and perhaps as nonsensical as any of us are at heart. I would offer however, that I would like to do some good, insofar as it is possible. I would break up my reasonings into two general categories, the Concrete, and the Abstract / Overthought.
To start, and maybe even primarily, I just want to travel and do something different. I want to go to a place that not only have I never been to, but a place that I otherwise would never end up going to. What better place to accomplish that than the Peace Corps? They have volunteers that are strewn, quite literally, all over the globe. And I have, also quite literally, never at any point in my life been more than an hour drive or plane ride away from where I grew up, in Annapolis. I’ve never lived more than 20 minutes away from Interstate - 95.
When is the last time any one saw an advertisement to go travel to sub-Saharan Africa? It could just be the case that I’m unaware that the next Yacht Week or Fyre Festival will be on Lake Kivu in East Africa or held on a remote island off the coast of Madagascar. If not for this Peace Corps opportunity, not only would I likely never go to a place like Rwanda, but no matter how much money I made or prestige I earned or opportunities I had to travel, I would likely never even consider it. As I used to tell my poor co-worker Andrew as I would stare wistfully out the window, “Theres a whole world out there, man”. In my mind that means doing your best to experience the great touristy parts, as well as the places that are off the grid. Of course, I say that now, in the comforts of America.
“Help, Us, All”
And I really do want to help people. I worked on Capitol Hill for three and a half years, and though I never liked the phrase (as it wreaked of Work-Speak), we only ever dealt with “the 30,000 foot view” of the issues. We were always addressing the pressing problems, and my particular issues were Health and Housing. To do this, my coworkers and I would spend days and weeks writing letters to other Senators, White House Administrators, Agency heads, and the like, urging, imploring, suggesting, pushing and ensuring that they take certain courses of action to actually address the issues we cared about. And what did we receive? Responses to our letters of course, complete with very polite, assurances, promises and reviews of policy. I would look at these letters, the fruits of our daily labors, and think to myself, Yeah but what does this actually mean? What is actually going to happen with this? It takes years and years to pass legislation. It takes even more years still to make sure that the agencies of jurisdiction of that law are engaging that law properly. Meanwhile people on the ground need help.
We were indeed dealing in the 30,000 foot view: From Washington we looked down upon the ailing world, trying to use our infinite resources to drop care packages for the people below. But the drop zones are far away, and the packages can only get there so fast. Were the packages actually reaching their destination? When they landed, if they landed at all, were they even in tact, were they usable? In my view, it was very hard to tell. I was never able to shake this feeling from my mind, that I may be better suited to actually be someone who was dealing with people, case by case, interfacing with them and helping them. Now I’ll get my chance to put up or shut up.
Writing Down the Bones
This blog is another reason I’m excited to do this. As you may be able to tell by the expansive and indulgent length of these first few posts, I love writing. I love the art of it, I love picking my words and conveying my thoughts and articulating my ideas. The problem is, I’ve never had anything of worth to write about. And unlike some of my very talented friends, I don’t have the brain circuitry to write fiction and make up great stories out of whole cloth. I would consider myself more of the essayist type, and an essayist type needs not only a platform from which to write, but a compelling one. What does a 26 year old guy who sits in a great job in a Senate office with no profound personal problems have to write about? Nothing at all, thats what.
But none the less, over the past years I have manufactured my opportunities to share my writing with friends and others. I took the liberty of writing 1,000+ word recaps of D.C recreational kickball games to my fellow teammates. I assumed the moniker “Chairman of the Bored” in a few essays to friends when we recap our experiences each year around Christmas time. In my office, I was the head of our March Madness pool, where I wrote long and indulgent odes to the joys of gambling. They were few and far between, but they were always worth a laugh or two and I always enjoyed them thoroughly. Don’t worry, I’ll share all of these things in future posts.
The Peace Corps, as one of their central missions for each volunteer, encourages each person to share their story, ostensibly through their own blog which many volunteers take advantage of. I would encourage many of you, if you are interested in getting great stories and reading great writing, to take a look at these blogs and get a feel for what life is like in other countries. The majority of them are very well done and informational. I’m excited to have what I think is a legitimate avenue to share my thoughts and writing in the context of traveling in the Peace Corps. Without knowing my future schedule, internet connectivity, or the like, I would really like to make this as legitimate of a blog as I am capable. I’m going to try to post once a week. Tuesdays seem like a good day of the week to do it. These posts are a start and I can’t thank you enough for reading.
As a preface, I understand the inherent conceit in writing your own blog. Even the term “blog” makes me wince slightly, since I know this spans the range from 19 year olds guiding others to living an enlightened life through yoga and fruit diets, to the most colorless corporate blogs about how best to leverage relationships to increase Business-to-Business software sales.
I don’t have much to say to this other than I am fighting against a deep aversion to talking at length about myself in order to do something that I genuinely enjoy. In this vein, there isn't much more I can do than report my story, simply as I see it. I hope what you will find here in these weekly-ish posts is a thoughtful and interesting perspective on a narrow slice of life. And as an added bonus, even if you think these initial posts are absolute drivel, if you follow me from the start you’ll get to slowly watch the diary of a madman as he slips into a malaria induced stupor in the Heart of Africa! See I have all of you dark types perfectly covered as well!
The Abstract and The Overthought
Over the years of being in my office, I became a massive of fan of Joe Rogan and his podcast. Indeed, in a future post, I’m going to take the unsolicited liberty of writing an ode to Joe Rogan and my other podcast favorites that kept me going during my dark desk times. The interesting thing about Joe Rogan is that this meat-head MMA commentator and stand-up comedian has unwittingly become something of a motivational speaker to a lot of us unfulfilled people floating around out there.
One idea he has that he articulates well, which hit home for me was the danger of succumbing to “The Momentum of Your Life”. I loved that phrase, not because of its objective poetic nature, but for more selfish reasons; I knew this feeling had experienced that it and that fear so acutely for such a long time. I’ll give you a simple example.
I love working out, not only because I am physically wired to do it, but simply because it just mentally makes me feel better and more relaxed. I enjoy the feeling of being in shape. It’s always been important to me. You would think that, given this, I would be in roaring shape, taking every chance possible to better myself physically and slowly increasing my capacity over time.
Not so! Let me tell you about what happens every single Monday: I work out, and when I work out I feel like trash. And why does this happen every single Monday? Because invariably, I like to hang out on weekends. I hang out with friends, alcohol is usually involved and I stay out late, disrupting my sleep schedule and probably not eating the healthiest of meals. This lifestyle, as everyone knows, is not conducive to optimal physical performance and of course significantly undermines it.
So every single Monday while I’m working out, I remember the weekend I had, and I think to myself: Damn I feel like garbage. If I could just lay off the booze, if I could reign it in, who knows the heights of great shape I could achieve! I would be a killer! And every week, as the days go by, I slowly get myself back into what I think is good shape. And every Friday or Saturday I call my friends, or my friends call me, and I go out and carry-on - until I’m back at it on Monday: If I could just reign it in, the heights I could reach! It’s difficult for me to stress how often this has happened to me, how often I have had this thought. The repetition of it is nothing other than banal, to the point of being comical. It is every Monday, and then it is every weekend.
Don’t get me wrong. I hang out with my friends and go out and carry-on because I greatly, greatly enjoy it. Being with my friends and loved-ones is one of the most important things to me. As my brother says - “yeah you’re sorry but you’re not that sorry”. But this feeling I have every Monday - every single Monday remains: What heights could I achieve if I could get outside the normal routine of my life? What talents could I develop if I could extricate myself and escape my habits? What implications could it have for work, for writing, learning guitar, improving my relationships? Perhaps the world will be at my fingertips. Perhaps I will be revealed as a regular guy who likes to dream. Either way, I won’t know unless I give it a shot.
The working out example is a simple, and stupid, one. The stakes are decidedly low andI know I’m not doing any harm. But the sentiment, I think, is important. I have all these things that I’d like to do, and things I would like to explore. But I always felt that I did not have the time, or that I was too deep into the grooves of my life to change my behavior in a meaningful way to address them. I was, as Joe Rogan had warned against, succumbing to the Momentum of My Life, floating down the river of external expectations and personal laziness. Of course, there are less dramatic and more practical methods of changing your habits and behaviors than signing up to live in an African village for two years. But where would be the fun in that?
I think going into the Peace Corps offers a very structured, well supported and yes, temporary path around the Momentum of my Life. It is a exit ramp onto a service road that runs adjacent to the Alex Highway. Ok maybe it’s a back road. Indeed, it will be smaller, slower, not as well paved, less understood. But it will offer a new perspective on what the highway looks like. And eventually - perhaps most importantly - it will lead back to it.