Post 26: Chernobyl

Today in chemistry, we watched a very disturbing video about nuclear power, and the aftermath of the meltdown of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl in 1986. Watching the video was a very surreal experience, and just made me feel as though I was the luckiest person in the world, and that grades weren't that big a deal anymore. An analogy which I came up with to express how I felt after watching that video is: watching a video where every child had defects, and the fact that chances of their getting a disease, or a cancer being hundreds of times higher than normal, everything about my life seemed as though I was the most fortunate person in the world. It was like finding a $20 bill wadded up in the back of my pants after I put it through the wash: it was always there, yet discovering that I had that $20 made me feel lucky, just as I have had the same privileges, and opportunities which most people in the world do not get, just rediscovered.

This made me think about the essential questions: 1. What kind of world is this?, and 2. How should I live in it? It seems as though the more I think about these two questions, I come further away from the answer. Once, someone told me that they felt sorry for me because I seemed to have more tests than anyone else. I replied by saying that it only seemed that way because I complained about having tests more than anybody else. This week, I've complained about having five tests (six actually, including that quiz in English today). I've complained about having to play that singles match in tennis on only 3 hours of sleep. However, after watching a video where every child either could not think rationally, or had their organs growing outside of their body, impossible to be removed by surgery (obviously, since someone couldn't live without their brain or kidneys), I am completely humbled. One of the saddest lines in the video was something along the lines of, "It's not that we don't know how to do the surgery, but rather, that we don't have enough money to do it." So, I decided I'd give it a shot, and I started a group on facebook where I'll donate $1 to some organization or orphanage supporting the victims of Chernobyl. I guess I'll see how many people in this world have a heart.

Going back to the essential questions, the only thing I'm sure of about this world is that it is beyond reason unfair. People are punished who haven't been born yet. The way I want to live in this world is by some form helping others. I just wish I was able to have a louder voice in this world with a cacophony of opposing views.