So What?: The Thought Process Behind My Essay

I just sailed around the world. So what. So what? So what?! What do you mean “so what”?! I just freakin’ sailed around the world. So what did I get out of it? So what did I put into it? So what did I take away? So what did I leave? So what did I learn? So what? So what?! How can you ask a question like “so what”?! That’s the extent of the assignment. So what? I’m not supposed to catalog my adventures or experiences. I’m not supposed to write on every country. I’m just supposed to pick one “so what” theme and go with it, touching on two, maybe three ports. So what? 10 pages. Go.
        So here I go. Brainstorming up something that could hopefully carry Dorothy away. Maybe I’ll land in the academic version of Oz and be taken away on some wonderful, essay-ish adventure. Speaking of Oz, did you know that the author of the Oz books came up with the name of Oz because he couldn’t think of anything else and when he looked up from his computer (uhh. . . probably typewriter, actually) there was the O-Z book of the encyclopedia right in front of him. And so Oz was born. I wish that was how all writers block could be solved. I wish I could look up from my computer and see the answer. Let’s give it a try, shall we? What’s the answer to my “So what”?
        Curtains.
        Spill proof tablecloths.
        A stormy gray ocean and clouds that come all the way down to the water that make it so I half expect a Moby Dick scene to take place right outside the window. 
        Are those the answer to my “So what?”
        Doubtful.
        So what is my so what? Does it involve the people? Or the places? Or the food? Or the culture? The way our cultures are different? Or the way they’re so similar?
        I just traveled around the world. I left America exactly three months ago. August 28, 2009. So what? What has changed? Have I changed? Is that what my so what is? The changes? Or is my so what those things that have stayed the same? The universalities of life around the globe. But that can’t be possible when, anthropologically, nothing is universal.
        If I’m not careful, I’m going to end up with 10 pages of blabber without a thesis. Quite possible, considering my tangential tendencies. But I really need to focus. Focus. Focus. Focus.
        It’s hard to focus when I don’t know what I’m focusing on. It’s like standing on top of a mountain, looking over a great landscape, and having someone say, “look closer.” Look closer? At what? At the forests down below or at the birds flying above? At the waterfall to the left or the village to the right? Look closer? Now what kind of instructions are that.
        I guess that’s the beauty of assignments like this. We are all standing on top of that mountain, all encouraged to look closer, and because the instructions are vague, we are granted to look closer at what interests us. To zoologist can look closer at the bear and cubs and the anthropologist can look closer at the baby and child. We have the opportunity to look closer at the specific parts of the landscape that attract us.
        But I suppose picking a direction, a specific place to look, is all well and good for the zoologist or anthropologist. They know what they’re interested in. But what about me? I’m a girl that looks up at the menu board at the Bagelry and can’t make a decision, and now here I stand on my mountaintop, looking at the awe-inspiring landscape artistically created by the culmination of the past three months being expected to pick one part to look closer at. Look closer. So what.
        I think what I need to remember is that by looking closer at one specific part, I’m not disregarding the rest of the view. Realizing that detail and depth can be found wherever I look enhances the view as a whole. I just need to pick a spot.
        Just pick one.
        Just pick one.
        Just. Pick. One.
        Okay, still haven’t picked one.
        I have no idea what I want to talk about. What stuck out to me? What specific places? The Amy Biehl Foundation in South Africa and the Angkor Ruins in Cambodia. Okay. Step one, done. Step two is harder, considering I don’t even know what it is. I guess I’ll just keep processing and then see where I end up.
        I liked the Amy Biehl Foundation both because of where it came from (meaning the reconciliation between the family and murderers, not the murder itself) and for what it stands for now. I like that what Amy Biehl stood for lives on after she has passed. It’s a piece of her left behind, so to speak. I guess I hope that something of me is left behind. That someone will remember me not just as a person but as someone that stood for something. That my legacy will continue long after I do. Not that my legacy has to be one of fame – not that at all. But I would like to hope that by the time I leave this planet, I would have made some sort of dent. Some kind of chink in the armor of worldliness. I hope that I would make a difference. Amy Biehl made that difference. She made a difference both when she was alive – by working against the apartheid – and in her death, by having the foundation set up to support those that killed her.
        I think that my awe for South Africa extends even beyond the Amy Biehl foundation. Actually, I know it does. They are all about moving forward. They recognize the past, want to learn from it, and then want to move forward. The Biehl parents recognized that what happened to their daughter was horrible, they acknowledge that it shouldn’t have happened, but then they moved forward. Instead of being trapped in a dungeon of self-pity or dragged back in time to when they still had their Amy, they moved forward to the next best thing. If they could no longer have their daughter, they would carry on their daughter’s spirit. She would live on. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee had the similar notion of moving forward. They had the option of living in the past, of dragging people down for what had happened to or by them. But they didn’t. Instead they chose to move forward. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee took the first step in the right direction out of a crowd that was running in circles. They took a step towards the future.
        Even now South Africa is continuing to move forward. I think that’s something that I really appreciated about that country. They had so many opportunities to look backwards, to get caught up in what happened there so recently, for the oppressed to stay angry at the former oppressors and so on. But this didn’t happen.

(Going to salsa now. I think I've gotten the ball rolling. Where it will roll to, I have no idea. But at least it's moving now.)