There are, clearly, stark differences between the lives lived on each side of the Harvard gates, and there is much more work that needs to be done to help our neighbors without homes. What can be found on both sides, however, is love, hope, and faith; faith that a better world is possible for all of us.
My high school English teacher once told me something I didn’t understand until last year, after living through the unifying challenges to well-being posed by pandemic life: “Wherever you go, there you are.”
From the point each of us checks into the political arena, we are vulnerable to political nihilism: the feeling of bleak, insurmountable hopelessness. But how can this virus be cured?
Even now, as I frenetically fumble with the keyboard, typing what I’m sure will turn out to be a directionless flow of consciousness, I still find it difficult: difficult to decide that what I’m writing is worth an initiation, let alone a conclusion.
Sarah Jaquette Ray is a Professor of Environmental Studies and the Program Leader of the Environmental Studies Program at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. Her work focuses on modern climate justice advocacy and trauma studies.
Despite the significant amount of aid seemingly invested in the Global South, intergenerational mobility (IGM) has largely stalled in low-income countries, and many remain increasingly constrained by the socioeconomic circumstances of their birth.
Financial achievement has historically been deemed the epitome of success, but a new generation of workers may be prioritizing well-being and personal satisifaction over income.
Mental illness is an elusive theme to represent well, as it exists in different forms across different spectra of identity. Careful portrayals acknowledge and uplift this variety, taking precautions not to allow mental illness to reduce a character.
