Lots of different colors, but they're all the same

Sooo...I did something stupid today. Actually, I did it on Sunday, but I didn't realize I had done it until today, after a good nights sleep. I lost my wallet. That stupid, ugly thing that I've had FOREVER with the embroidered flames on the front (I thought they were cool when I was 12) is gone, and it took with me all my forms of identification, plus my debit card. Funny how the instant you realize you have no access to money, you need a lot of it. Anyway, I got paranoid (as I often do) and called my bank and cancelled my card. Good move, says I, before someone finds my card and a good place for a shopping spree (like the Internet). Moving on, the next step is to get a new driver's licence. I went to the DMV today, hoping I could prove that I am myself by the only form of identification I have left: my passport. Ironic, isn't it? Most days, I'm not even sure I WANT to be me, but today, I am fighting for the legitimacy of my existence, armed with the only weapon/document at my disposal.

I would now like to stop what I was talking about and discuss something completely different. I feel like this is fair since I gave you all an advance warning.

The world is a scary place. One word I would use to describe it is conflict. Constant conflict (if I were allowed two). It seems like every time someone bothers to venture an opinion or take a stand on an issue (and we're doing that less and less these days) there's some person, or group of people who are offended, or feel attacked, or simply refuse to see the merits of another person's opinion. Fights ensue, people get hurt, and in the end, we usually go our separate ways. Conflict is so common. Resolved conflict is so rare. I don't vote anymore. I used to vote. I used to go to protests, and shout my opinion at the top of my lungs. I don't do any of that anymore. Sometimes I think that everything beautiful and moving has already been said. So how does one move a mass of people whose hearts are so heavy with apathy, and unresolved conflict when we have nothing new or moving or beautiful to say? Nothing that could make all these people who can't agree about anything look at the world like it's a place of possibility. Like the reasons we all hate each other could be just misunderstandings. It's something I want so badly, but it just got too hard. The world was so heavy that I had to put it down. I don't think I was ever meant to lift it on my own, but I didn't see anyone else around to do the job, and now that I've set it down, I can only see it sinking, and I can't stop myself from thinking that there's nothing I can do to stop it. I think that's why I don't think about it much. Too depressing, the state of the world. There are some beautiful things going on with individual people that I'd rather focus on. But I realized something today.

Passports.

My roommate has a passport, and so do I. My roommate is from Korea. I am American. My passport is blue, with an emblem of an eagle in Gold. My roommate's passport is red, with a similar emblem (I think it's a statue or something?) also in gold. Same size, same color paper on the inside, same purpose. I remember a scene in the 1959 film Charade, where Walter Mathau Is showing Audrey Hepburn the passport of her deceased husband. "Is this your husband?," he asks. "Yes that's him," she replies. "And this?" He shows her another passport, similar looking, but from a different country. He shows her about eight different passports, all from different countries, but basically all the same general design. Gold (sometimes silver) lettering, an emblem on the front. Same size, same paper on the inside, same purpose. Maybe we're all a lot like passports. Some of us come from different places, and the marks on the inside show that we've been a lot of different places. Maybe we're decorated a bit differently on the outside, but really, when you get down to it, don't we all have the same purpose? Maybe I'm stretching this a little bit, but I find it oddly encouraging that somehow all the nations of the world came to a consensus that passports should be small books with an emblem in gold lettering on the front. Same size, same paper, same purpose. We agree about something. Maybe, just maybe, we could agree about something else, something more important someday. Hope comes in the form of little booklets with gold letters. We all have the same purpose.