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.
Tell them I've had a wonderful life.
I will not close my eyes, neither those in my head nor those in my soul, as the ship carries me away, along with my future, my dreams, and my beliefs. Buru Island is no happy land somewhere; it's but a way station on my journey in life—though to believe even that much will require no small measure of hope.
After traveling through fourteen foreign countries and appearing before all the royalty and nobility I have only one wish today. That is that when my eyes are closed in death that they will bury me back in that quiet little farm land where I was born.
English is the only interesting thing that's left in my life.
We were poor, but we didn't know it. There were no government bureaus in those days presuming to determine where poorness begins and ends, but I don't remember ever being hungry.
Life's short, you know? Especially as an athlete. Your career is very short, and you use the opportunities that you have because you're not going to have them again.
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