To Dust | Tilting Futures

a thought-full rampage

excerpts from my journal

i have been struggling to find the words of how i feel i feel a million different things i feel the weight of the garbage on the rotting soil and i feel the frustration in those who put it there i feel torn in my motives i feel i want to provoke change but i know i am here desperate to learn

there is an accumulation of tied up knotting breaking and multiplying strings of thoughts in my mind and it ends up in my throat especially when the sunken eyed skinny girl reached in the rickshaw squeezed my leg desperate for money a grip that tortured me and my eyes filled and the strings multiplied

they grow and grow and grow and i don’t get anywhere no closer to a belief or a passion because where are villagers supposed to put their garbage if there is no collection but why can’t they start a movement what is going to happen to the little girl that squeezed one last squeeze her fingernails a forever dent in my skin if she does not pay the man she is working for her days allowance from begging how do i fix this cycle how do i unravel this circle

i have talks about school and isn’t it a paradox i am teaching in a school i tell my students you need to learn right here right now but i am doing the opposite i am a contradiction they have a story unable to be told by anyone else i know their homes are a contraption of their knowledge in the laws of physics evident in every nook and cranny and so i think is school even necessary do we even need schools are they doing more harm than good are they just standing as a statistic empty rotting away with no teachers after NGO’s build them are they actually destructive

i stopped for shade in a hut where a woman crouched over in the dust her eyes browning from the sun with a couple teeth missing and her skin like leather as she gave me water from the well that was kilometers down and out the mountain i hear my sister nandini say she wants to help this woman she needs a job and money but why i asked as the weathered woman stared out with a delighted gaze at the staggering hills as if it was the most breathtaking thing she ever did see though she comes seven to five everyday why is it so believable every human being must be held to this standard of having this and that for a year then upgrading every year after why wasn’t she enough

so i think and i think and everything i think turns to dust

and i feel and i feel and everything i feel makes me feel no bigger nor smaller than a piece of dust

About mimieshleman

Mimi tackles the world's challenges much like the story of the starfish, in which an old man tells a little boy that throwing starfish back into the ocean to avoid their dehydration would not make a difference as hundreds lined the shore. The boy then picked up another starfish and said, "It made a difference for that one!" Mimi is going to tackle her passion of education to empower men and women a little at a time, as she understands that we can all work together to make a difference. "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Mimi believes that the root of all change begins with education. She is passionate about economic and environmental sustainability. Her primary goal is to build lasting relationships with men and women, leaving them feeling empowered so they too can crave more knowledge.