Saturday, June 02, 2007

ghost world.


I bought a new book on Wednesday night in Royal Oak which I am very excited to read. It is a case study on the infamous death camp that includes more than a 100 interviews with survivors and Nazi Perpetrators that speak on record for the first time. I bought it just because I intend to take a weekend trip to Krakow this summer and take a bus guided tour of the grounds of Auschwitz. I have been wanting to do this since I was a kid..... I guess not many kids dream of wanting to go to seeing extermination camps and Titanic memorials and graveyards. (which I will also be seeing in 3 weeks.) I have always held an interest in tragedies, and I hold great empathy towards them. As in what we as humans can learn from some of the greatest attrocities that have occured through human acts of ignorance or carelessness. On Wednesday I was also tempted to buy Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. Now when people just hear the name Hitler, it is an immediate taboo. But what people don't take into account is that was a man who single handidly started the political ideaolgy of Nazism and movement that fronteired it all the way to genocide of 11 million people. He had an amazing gift of speech and he brainwashed an entire country with the power of his words. Much of it is illustrated in Mein Kampf. I think it serves as an important document and a reminder to make sure such heinousness never happens again to such an extent.
More enlightening news, I went to Greenfield Villiage yesterday with some grade school friends. I appreciated it much more now not being dragged by schoolbus. However, there were a couple hundred kids there scrambling and dodging around us in different directions. But it still proved to be an alright time. I still get a kick out of seeing Thomas Edison's old labarotorys.
I have alot of packing and organzing to do in the 20 days I still have left here. I haven't been able to push myself very much to do it, as I haven't with much of anything lately. I feel cut off from people. Almost in the regards that I don't wnt to try with people much here anymore. Which is sad for me to admit... I have been trying to ignore this and putting on a smile and trying for the sake of those who I know care. I know it is the right thing to do. Just so difficult after these last 10 weeks or so. I do know, just around the corner in 3 weeks, is all the possibility and chance in the world for me. It is just so hard to notice being that I have never been there before. But it is there. At least one can hope.
Empathy though. It is a powerful emotion, and it has been the strongest suit of my life. I will discuss that in length relatively soon.

0 comments: