Crisis of Meaning

I don't know what to do. I feel an obligation to the people I read about in the New York Times--those in America and those abroad, those who have suffered in great disasters or who simply live in places immensely dangerous and underprivileged. It's difficult to reconcile the American sense of complacency and entitlement and a more altrusitic and human emotion of empathy. The materialism and individualism prevalent in my society is intoxicating and destructive.

What's the use of living for the moment and enjoying life as an individual when there is so much wrong and so much hatred in so many places on earth? Of course, the only answer I can think of is that this is why we are alive--to enjoy it. Otherwise why would we feel any obligation to others, any obligation to help others to enjoy a comfortable life the way we can? It is a goal we all strive to reach, a goal that many need help to reach. But there is no reason for the rest of us who have this within reach to snub it and fall out with society, alienating others with self-righteous clamor for the privileged to give up their lives in respect for those who cannot have the same things? The whole point is to bring a good, environmentally sustainable quality of life to the most people possible.

I suppose that answered a question for me. Because I have an obligation to humans and I can't say how I came up with it. I feel that I should, I need to make a difference in the world during my time on earth, lest my life dry up and my legacy waste away. I do not seek immense recognition, only my own knowledge that I have brought some kind of positive change to the future of mankind. As a self professed pessimist most of the time, I imagine the earth spiraling away into self-destruction and falling far short of its potential.

I can't bear to see it go to waste.