Beginning
I was watching a PBS Frontline documentary recently. It was mostly about the Taliban, but a sideline story caught my attention. In 2006, a Pakistani journalist made news when he made a discovery about an air strike in a remote Pakistani village. The air strike was meant to kill Bin Laden's right hand man, Zawahiri. But he was not there, and mostly women and children died in those air strikes. The journalist who happened to live in the same village, found pieces of the missile amongst the wrecked houses - labels identified the pieces as a US missile. This made for headline news - the implication was that the US was carrying out air strikes on sovereign Pakistani land.
The previous air strikes in Pakistan that killed Al-Qaeda operatives were claimed to have been carried out by the Pakistani military. This time, the Pakistani government could not. The world had verifiable proof that the US was involved. Whither Pakistani sovereignty? The journalist had deeply embarrassed the Pakistani government. Days later, the journalist vanished, having been forced into a car by some men. Six months later, his dead body riddled with bullets was found somewhere near his village.
At the end of the PBS documentary, I found out that this journalist was born the same year that I was. The story was terrible enough, but him being the same age as myself, made me feel all the more worse. Somehow, I felt that despite his terrible end, he has nonetheless managed to make an impact on life. His life and death was not in vain because of his expose.
It started me thinking about my life and where it is headed. What have I achieved in those same years? What is my impact on this world? Is there any? I found myself not being able to come up with anything worthwhile that I could be proud of. My personal accomplishments - my fanciful degrees, my ivy league education, my various impressive internships here and there, it all seemed fruitless. Why? Because all of it truly means nothing when I have become nothing more than a working and thinking body that merely enables the financial betterment of a company.
Perhaps I think this way because I am in a particular point in my life where I am disillusioned. Surely one would argue that being alive is better than being dead.
But I feel like I am one of the living dead, as cliched as it sounds. I had more hopes for myself a decade ago.
What has happened to them?
The previous air strikes in Pakistan that killed Al-Qaeda operatives were claimed to have been carried out by the Pakistani military. This time, the Pakistani government could not. The world had verifiable proof that the US was involved. Whither Pakistani sovereignty? The journalist had deeply embarrassed the Pakistani government. Days later, the journalist vanished, having been forced into a car by some men. Six months later, his dead body riddled with bullets was found somewhere near his village.
At the end of the PBS documentary, I found out that this journalist was born the same year that I was. The story was terrible enough, but him being the same age as myself, made me feel all the more worse. Somehow, I felt that despite his terrible end, he has nonetheless managed to make an impact on life. His life and death was not in vain because of his expose.
It started me thinking about my life and where it is headed. What have I achieved in those same years? What is my impact on this world? Is there any? I found myself not being able to come up with anything worthwhile that I could be proud of. My personal accomplishments - my fanciful degrees, my ivy league education, my various impressive internships here and there, it all seemed fruitless. Why? Because all of it truly means nothing when I have become nothing more than a working and thinking body that merely enables the financial betterment of a company.
Perhaps I think this way because I am in a particular point in my life where I am disillusioned. Surely one would argue that being alive is better than being dead.
But I feel like I am one of the living dead, as cliched as it sounds. I had more hopes for myself a decade ago.
What has happened to them?
