When you are interviewing refugees, each person you talk to has a different story that could come from a horror movie. So many people talk about seeing their families get murdered before their eyes. Then I go to Central Park, and people are talking about their third divorce and paying tuition.
Interpretation
The quote contrasts the traumatic experiences of refugees with the relative trivialities of everyday life.
Brandon Stanton highlights the stark differences between the harrowing realities faced by refugees, who endure unimaginable suffering, and the more mundane challenges encountered by those living in comfort. This comparison invites reflection on privilege and the varying narratives of human experiences, prompting us to consider the depth of suffering that exists alongside our daily struggles.
In practice
During a speech about global humanitarian issues, this quote can illustrate the urgent need for empathy.
Wherever I go, I just try to show normal life. If the work helps to dispel stereotypes, it's because I seek not to portray the extremities of a place, but the vast majority of people who are quite normal and are having normal life experiences.
I think that even though some of the things on 'Humans of New York' are kind of very personal and very revealing, I think the discomfort with sharing that tends to be overwritten by the appreciation of being able to distill the experience of your life into a story and share it with other people.
I always say that my favorite people to interview are the people who are at the beginning and the ends of their lives because they have two alternate perspectives of the world, and neither of them are less profound.
It's a very immersive and intense form of travel to walk around with an interpreter and stop random people on the street and ask them about their lives.
Somebody's willingness to let me photograph them, and willingness to tell me a story, has nothing to do with the words I say. It all has to do with the energy I'm giving off, which hopefully is very genuine, very interested energy. It's just two people having a conversation in the street. I think that's where genuine content comes from.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
And you know what it is? San Francisco a golden handcuff with the key thrown away.
Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.
It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.
Deep within every human being there still lives the anxiety over the possibility of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the millions and millions in this enormous household. One keeps this anxiety at a distance by looking at the many round about who are related to him as kin and friends, but the anxiety is still there, nevertheless, and one hardly dares think of how he would feel if all this were taken away.
Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time?
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