It's so jarring to go from Baghdad to Cambridge, to go from a place where people are fighting and striving and dying to a place where the biggest concern is what kind of cheese to put in your sandwich.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the stark differences between war-torn regions and peaceful environments.
Dexter Filkins contrasts the harsh realities of life in Baghdad, where survival is a challenge and people face violence daily, with the trivial concerns of everyday life in Cambridge, epitomized by an inconsequential choice like selecting cheese for a sandwich. This juxtaposition emphasizes the vast disparities in human experiences and the way perspective shifts depend on one's environment and circumstances.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a discussion on the impact of war on societies.
Any American who has spent time in Iraq or Afghanistan will tell you: the closer you get, the less certain you are of anything. If you are in Iraq, if you are in Afghanistan, everything is ambiguous. Everything is murky and gray and uncertain and possibly lethal.
Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
This is how it works _x000D_ You're young until you're not _x000D_ You love until you don't _x000D_ You try until you can't _x000D_ You laugh until you cry _x000D_ You cry until you laugh _x000D_ And everyone must breathe _x000D_ Until their dying breath.
We live in a flash of light; evening comes and it is night forever. It's only a flash and we waste it. We waste it with our anxiety, our worries, our concerns, our burdens.
Who promised you that only for joy were you brought to this earth?
That's because you've never been one. You haven't spent years wearing someone else's clothes, taking someone else's name, living in someone else's houses, and working someone else's job to fit in. And if you don't sell out, then you run away... proving you're the Gypsy they said you were all along.
The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name.
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