Dear World,

For much of my life, you have raised me to believe that the noble deeds required by society of me based on my abilities and background are very much related to going to school, getting a 'good education,' and moving into a career. PhD's, scientists, researchers... are very much exalted as those vanguards and explorers of our vast intellectual reserve. To set me on that trail, you have baited myself and other students with fascinating intellectual toys.

But World,
you didn't tell me about the others that you drew to this place,
or that there are places where children cannot have such things as you promise to my future. Even when we read about those places, you did not tell us what it was like to be there, or to know the people as friends and family. You said it like it was another intellectual bauble.

I have followed your bait to the cage, but World,
you will not keep me here.

We are finding out, slowly. And we will find the way out by comparing our stories.

World, your plan seemed so amazing, but
You didn't tell me
that starving people have no use for abstract algebra
that articles are not enough to keep warm by
that categorizing the proteome does not preempt hatred
that reading about religion tells us nothing about God
and research papers do not stop my friends from waking up alone and screaming
Physics might know whether the cat is alive or dead, but nothing about life or death.

I have heard about the days when philosophy ran wild outdoors in search of the source and stuff of living.
This too, you have brought indoors, domesticated until, pale and shriveled, it falls upon itself for sustenance, forgetting it's beginnings and wondering what it has become.


World,
your offer is enticing, and you have already trained me well to fulfill it in many ways.
But, until there is a greater need for libraries than for bread,
for theorems than for companionship,

until you address the needs of those beyond this cage,
I will find a way out.
I shall deprive you of the research papers you have invested in me to write,
because even as you trained me here, you have deprived my brothers and sisters of things far more essential.

How can I add to your fat libraries
or concentrate on filling my mind
when my friends are starving in so many different ways?

My primary responsibilities are elsewhere.


Sincerely,

-me