grown-ups

in my travels, i think i have met the grown-up version of jessica moe. i hope it's not too impolite to blog about people (maybe it's even an compliment?), but i'm going to do it anyways

who is this person? an activist-campaigner type, very pro-working in developing countries, very pro-organic, very pro-environment (so much so that she doesn't eat meat),

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aside: meat is HORRIBLE for the environment - the amount of grain needed to raise a cow can feed 10 people, and it takes around 3000 L of water to produce just a kilo of beef (and you probably thought you wasted the most water doing laundry, showering, flushing, etc...) - i REALLY WISH i was vegetarian, for health and environmental reasons, but alas i also really like the taste of meat :( - it's hard to do what you really don't want to do, even if you think it's right
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very anti-consumerist, very anti-shopping malls, very interested in working seriously on the ground (i.e. a remote, poor village in the middle of nowhere), very idealistic, etc...

in many ways, i really wish i could be more like this. i have a weakness for toilets, showers (surprise surprise), and an absence of bugs in my room, but so many people live without these things that i wish i was better able to stomach it. i wish i was vegetarian (as listed above). i (sometimes) wish i was more activisty, although i often wonder how effective grassroots activism is say, compared to working for policy-level change from within the establishment.

i mostly wish, though, that i had as much heart as this person and as jessica moe, an old friend of mine who got me thinking about helping the most needy globally in the first place so many years ago. the world would be a better place if there were more people like this, of this i am certain. still, i personally don't think that the best way to make change is the move into the middle of nowhere and doctor - i think working at a policy-level, or donating your money to train say 10 local doctors, are more efficient uses of one's resources.

that being said, people flourish when they do what they enjoy doing - and for some people that is to work on the ground, and i must say i admire that a great deal