Hiking up to Tio Chalba's house, Ahuachapán, El Salvador.
A conversation I had a few weeks ago that, for some reason, seems to still linger in the back of my mind:
"He told me, 'That's great, but are you sure you are prepared to handle failure?' "
"What did he mean?"
"Well, working in the development field you are pretty much guaranteed to fail 90% of the time. I mean, it makes sense if you think about it. If we were succeeding, conditions would be much better, no? Instead, things only seem to be getting worse. Most development work is failed policy."
"Right."
"So this means that the people preparing these policies, in other words, the people we hope to be in the future, are failing at their jobs. Not purposely of course, it's just an impossible field. We're actually crazy for wanting it so much."
"Haha. Yeah."
"You know, I've always been a good student. I don't really know how to fail."
"Yeah. Me neither..."
The Shins "Caring is Creepy" *
