“Could it be that I had never lived?  I had traveled, but everywhere I’d been people spoke my language, accepted my currency, affermed my assuptions.  I lived in rented apartments built and maintained by people I’d never met; I didn’t know how to build a house, or even fix my own plumbing.  I bought food products from the supermarked without any idea what was in them or where they came from; I didn’t know what it was to hunt and kill an animal or rely on a garden for sustenance.  I had donated to charities, but never seriously done anything to adress injustice or even interact with the ones who suffered it.  I had voted for politicians and signed petitions, but never organized anything in my community, never stopped a bulldozer or started a riot.  I had dreams and aspirations, but it seemed I’d watched more action movies on television that I’d ever had adventures in real life.  There were things I loved doing, goals I hoped to achieve, but I’d spent a lot more time working to pay for that rent, food, charity, television.  Of course, I had no idea what to do or where to go; all I had to go on was the vague notion that there must be somethion else out there.  I wanted anything other than the future that was already written for me, I would have to strike out on my own.”

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