Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Unnoticed

Before this class, my identity was that of this cosmopolitan-world-traveler out to rid the world of hunger, and really just inequality. The key idea here is that somewhere along the line, I picked up this idea that I had to travel the world to make a difference. Interestingly enough a big part of the reason I travel the world is to see poverty and lend a hand. Post exploring Seattle through a
new lens, this reoccurring theme of poverty at home continued to force me to focus on reality. On our venturing tour of Seattle where I more or less grew up; I realized that what I have sought to accomplish outside of this country in third world countries is very attainable in my own backyard. This makes me wonder why I never noticed the poverty all around before. In the past every
time I’ve gone to the city I can imagine myself looking upward; that day I looked downward. By looking down, it was almost as if this city that I’ve claimed as my stomping grounds, is not the city I thought it was all along. Through these images of luxury and poverty I was struck by the inequalities I consciously chose to refuse to see.

As a result, before this trip to Seattle and the readings in this course, I may have scoffed at the man reaching into the garbage on a busy city street. Though, once I viewed the city without a luxury filter, I began to realize the self-sustaining mini economy this man exemplifies. I followed this man around for a few minutes as he listened to his music and remained completely unnoticed by everyone around him. Sadly, I never would have noticed this man slowly walking from garbage can to garbage can peering in for aluminum cans. However, on that day I slowed down and noticed. Upon realization, I was able to recognize not only this man, but many others who have created their own cycle of income by taking what no one else wanted and providing for themselves. Thus, not only did the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” become so true, this project forced me to recognize the unnoticed people in my very own city.

3 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed your insight into this picture.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a great capture!!! I really like what you had to say about it, too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is Betty-- it wouldnt let me sign with the account on Blogger.

    I think you mentioned something along the lines of following this guy for a while...

    While I was by the waterfront I saw a man also looking through trash. I wanted to get a picture but I was way behind, across the street. what caught my eye was that he would only browse through trash and would not even bother with recycle!
    Made me question what he was looking for....

    ReplyDelete