Commericials exist for one reason, to sell more of a company’s product. There are many different ways to accomplish this which can be found exhaustively listed on Wikipedia. The association method is the one that I find most interesting and pertinent to the topic at hand. The association method depicts a scene which the company feels its customers’ desire. The theory is that if a customer sees the scene associated with the product, then they will form a connection between buying the product and becoming a part of the scene.

For the rest of this entry I will refer to Real as happiness. Real is like happiness but it’s different then stupid grin happy. It’s more like fufilled happy. I am sorry that I don’t have a better word.

All of these commericals attempt to capture the essence of Real. For me this moment of Real occurs at the end of a long dinner with a great group of people. There is no tension, convesation hangs lazily in the thick air and laughter can be heard over the dull clang of a fork against a glass whose owner is deep in conversation. No one moves. There is no thought of tomorrow. These are the moments that I live for.

This moment is rarely achieved and when you realize its Real, its magical quality disappears. For some the moment of Real happens at parties. For others watching the sunset alongside their significant other. There are as many different kinds of moments as there are people on this Earth. Yet one thing unites us as humans, everyone strives for these moments.

Real can not be worked for nor achieved. Yet few realize this. Instead most labor more and more intensively in order to earn it. They believe that material possesions which can be earned will make the moments of Real more frequent. Yet this is simply untrue. Material possesions are independent of these moments.

Additionally, possessions are not the only thing people which prevent people from having moments of Real. Doing what you hate today for “the sake of the future” is even worse. I only now realize now that life is not about tomorrow. It in fact, is about today.

From this point of view community service is fairly elitest. It is for the priviliged to help the underpriviledged. From this reasoning, it would seem to make little sense for those who are underpriviledged to do community service for the priviledged. Therefore it would be only an elitest activity. I now find this understanding repulsive despite my intention.

Community service is about working for the greater good.

Equality is about erasing barriers betwen classes. Community service can be used as a tool to reach out to those you who would otherwise feel alienated. Equally, you must recognize when others extend you fellowship and accept it. However community service is not tied to equality. You can preform community service for those in your own community.

Community service is commiting an act which benefits any portion of any community without explicit compensation.

I feel like I have been given so much and it is only fair and right to use those gifts for the common good. I now realize that I don’t want to commit my life to community service but to reducing the enormous and artifical divides of inequality.