musings on the auckland museum
this morning we went as a group to the auckland museum. i'm finding that the things that attract me in museums is the exhibits on nature and on indigenous cultures. i couldn't give a rip about the armory exhibit or the old teapots of the english settlers that came to new zealand. there is something about white european culture that is such a turn off for me. there's nothing amazing about a lot of it because they just cut a swathe across this earth and managed to destroy so much in so little time. meanwhile, indigenous people such as the aborigines, maori and native americans have been living peacefully with the earth for ages. maybe they didn't invent cars, but what are cars going to bring us in the end when we destroy our planet?

there was also an exhibit by john pilger, an australian correspondent for the daily mirror. the photographs were from places including east timor, bangladesh, nicaragua, and indonesia. they were of people that were poor and often ignored by mass media (particularly by the american media, i think); some were from places that suffered much misery and death and destruction and oppression. they were incredibly moving and juxtaposed with the maori art in the museum and new zealand's troubled past with the native people...well, sometimes it just seems like this whole world sucks. it's sometimes so easy to get caught up in the bad stuff that goes on because there's so much of it. part of me wants to join the peace corps, and part of me just wants to put on blinders and pursue my career so at the very least i can surround MYSELF with happiness and friends and comfort and success. but what will all that mean in the end?