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.
He felt his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. How strange that in his dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as he rose and walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest?
Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.
The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height.
There are quite a lot of YouTube clips of me that have gone viral. One that I think of is of a young woman at a lecture I was giving - she came from Liberty University, which is a ludicrous religious institution. She said, 'What if you are wrong?' and I answered that rather briefly, and that's gone viral.
Every human life contains a potential, if that potential is not fulfilled, then that life was wasted.
America's founding Ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more - and nothing less.
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