It is ever so lightly snowing in Switzerland today, and not far outside of Geneva we are sailing past the countless vineyards that lay like a blanket on the landscape. Each plot of farmland is gridded with long sprawling rows of vines, and the farm houses and barns speckle the hills that roll themselves into the steep mountain barriers far off in the distance. I’m sitting the back row of this bus filled with students, and the scenery on either side of the highway is magnificent. It feels like the perfect time to reflect and process all the things we’ve seen and learned in the past four days. We came to Switzerland to learn about international child welfare, but I feel like I’ve learned more about myself than anything else. We’ve been exposed to a barrage of facts, stats and data, stories, ideas and concerns, and general information about child welfare. We’ve visited organizations who are on the forefront of the humanitarian effort on a global scale. We were welcomed to learn at places like the United Nations, the World Health Organization, F.S.M. (Doctors Without Borders), the Red Cross/Crescent Society, and the World Food Program. It was important to me personally to learn about who is doing what, and in which ways, for the people and children that are suffering around the world. I needed to affirm that I had a place in that battle. By the way, since I’ve last mentioned what’s happening outside the bus, we’ve passed a castle that was perched on the side of a snow-covered mountain, and we are currently driving through a tunnel underneath what I can only assume is a large mountain. Wait, never mind, it wasn’t a large mountain at all. In fact, it seemed like we just drove underneath some farmers field. Strange. Either way, we can speculate about the odd-to-me Swiss tunnels a later point. Where was I? Oh, yes, I was purging a reflective idea about the humanitarian efforts being executed around the globe.
The notion I want to explore is how reason begs us to examine the risk versus reward factor when it comes to putting one’s life on the line to help people in a country where conflict is a perpetual problem. How can we justify or reason with ourselves for denying a life of luxury and promise, to spend our short time on this earth in a war-torn or drought-ridden country to help -- in a hopeless fashion -- those who can longer help themselves? I think the answer to that question presented itself in a class that I’m currently taking back home at Maryville College. We’ve spent the last several weeks discussing the difference between the meaning of life versus the meaning in life. Secularistic philosophers, who believe that life has no ultimate meaning beyond our daily lives, often speculate not on the meaning of life, but what it means to have a meaningful existence in the little time we have in this reality, a meaning in life. One philosopher’s words resonated and rolled around in my head this week when considering the dangers of humanitarian work. Irving Singer, an American professor of philosophy who taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, defined the difference between a meaningful life and a life of significance. Singer said that to have a meaningful life, one must simply feel fulfilled. He stipulates that fulfillment in one’s life is contingent on one’s belief system, and no other person can determine or judge what makes someone feel fulfilled. Meaning, if someone feels fulfilled in their life to sit around and playing video-games until their life is over, that person has led a meaningful life. Singer also describes the next tier of a meaningful existence by describing what it means to live a life of not just meaningfulness, but significance. Singer describes a significant life as one in which a person spends their time caring more for others than one’s self. By this standard, everyone single person who spends their time caring for others more than for themselves is living the most significant and meaningful life possible. I can’t see myself being content at the end of my short life if I haven’t spent my time striving for a significant existence. See what I mean? I feel I’ve learned more about myself than anything on this trip, so far. To end this blog post I will update you on my current location. We have arrived in Bern and I am having a cappuccino while chatting with two beautiful locals about the German tapas menu that I do not understand. We are laughing and smiling, and we are all jacked up on caffeine.
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