this is how it should be

this past spring, i somehow managed to win the national geographic film + psa contest for a psa i made focusing on conservation and togetherness. on top of winning a hefty sum of money, natgeo kindly flew me out to dc for 3 days to attend their explorers symposium. it's a private event so i was pretty stoked about the whole deal. ballard, the guy who found the titanic was there as well as countless other scientists, who gave talks about their research. it was all exciting and whatnot. 

the thing that i took back the most from this all was not the presentations but the transportation. sad, i know, but read on and i'll explain. to take me from the airport to the hotel and back as well as back to school from the airport, i had a chauffeur. they wore dark suits and took my bags and stashed them away into the trunks of their cars and then held the passenger seat door open for me. as i sat there in the spacious back seats, with the morning news and beverages stashed into the compartments, i felt the feeling, "this is how it should be." 

it's probably the same feeling that slave owners felt while watching their servants and slaves work the fields while reclining, sipping some cool tea. it could very well be the same feeling a company owner feels as we walks by the desks of his employees. i felt like i had substantial power. i felt like i was someone. it's this feeling, i suppose, that lead men to have big egos and little empathy, something i wish not to have. but sitting in the backseat of those cars, i felt accomplished...which is bullshit because i got it all for a 30 second psa, but you get the point. it feels nice to have someone open the door for you, drive you around, carry your bags for you. 

the guy who drove me around dc talked to me as he drove. he talked about the armenian genocide and how it wasn't covered in american schools. he talked about this company that he joined that he hoped would make him financially secure within a couple of years. he talked about north korea and the possibility of a third world war. he talked about a number of things, but one of the most significant things he told me was, you don't want this job. study. 

i'm sure we've all heard this countless times. this guy realized his own shortcoming and was warning me. i wish him all the best in his business venture.