By Dennis Galletta
Fall, 1999 Semester at Sea
November 3, 1999
I
want to go back.
I
want to go back to India so that I can actually give something of myself. In port, I comforted myself with the thought
that I cannot help the starving and diseased millions, and that giving to
beggars would make the problems worse, not better. But even a smile, a touch, or a kind word would have been better
than the motion-blurred view of my back that I gave to needy strangers.
I
want to go back to Malaysia so that I can do even a tiny, insignificant
something about the obvious and seemingly growing racism that divides the three
peoples of Malaysia.
I
want to go back to Viet Nam to have deeper conversations with newly-made
friends.
I
want to go back to China to talk to more university students, and spend more
time in their tiny dorm rooms to know how, and why, they are thrilled to be in
their filthy, crowded surroundings.
I
want to go back to Japan to see the Bullet Train, Hiroshima, and Mount
Fuji. I even need to prove that I now
know my way around Kobe well enough to find the Sushi bar and make it back from
the Internet café with enough of a margin to avoid dock time this time.
Why
do I have these regrets? At first I
thought it was because I focused too much on personal comfort, shopping, and,
most of all, Internet cafes. While
these are indeed some of my errors, in the back of my mind I felt that the
problems of the world are too large and the solutions would take a hundred
lifetimes to solve. So I really didn’t
try.
Last
night I was moved by the stories by the “open mic” participants. Some expressed their happiness after giving
some money, food, or clothing to beggars.
Some described their feelings of sorrow and helplessness as they passed
the hungry people. Some told of intense
anger when fellow students selfishly complained about the unpleasant
surroundings. Some even privately confessed
that they agreed with many of the complainers.
I
realized last night that each of us is experiencing a dramatically different
Semester at Sea. While we share this
external experience, and its opportunities, we all take different steps outside
of our cocoons. Some peek out from a
tiny hole. Others stick their entire heads
out and gawk. The more adventuresome
break out and flap their wings among the flowers, becoming part of the
landscape. While the risks are higher
for them, they are the ones who will most radically transform and be
transformed by this experience.
I
hedged my risks, and therefore my opportunities, with a portable cocoon.
Think
about the story of a butterfly flapping its wings and setting off a chain
reaction, and imagine the chain reaction to be positive rather than
negative. But I realize that I only
marginally fluttered a single wing at each port; my portable cocoon was too
constraining.
Because I can’t turn back the clock, I’ll just have to try harder at the remaining 5 ports. I’ll try harder to give, to communicate, and to touch. Hopefully, this time I’ll be less uncomfortable to go outside of my warm, familiar cocoon, and then I’ll flap some widely-spread wings. Otherwise, as we land in Miami, I will have 10 ports full of regrets, not 5. And one thing is certain:
I CAN’T GO BACK!