The Very Best!

This is an incredibly powerful work and should be required reading/listening for everyone born into any amount of privilege. Thank you Wallace Shawn, thank you Lily Taylor.

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3 people found this helpful

Thought Provoking

This story, a bit confusing at first, really made me pause and think about social classes, capitalism, socialism, haves and have not. Why is privilege given to some and not others? What do we "deserve" our high status (or low status). This is an ugly, hard look... but worth while!

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3 people found this helpful

Good performance, pretentious “story”

Lily Taylor did a great job but the “story” is boring and in my opinion isn’t “thought provoking” it’s more about making you “feel bad” if you were born in a more prosperous nation.

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1 person found this helpful

Thought provoking

It is disturbing that our lot in life is determined by pure chance; almost completely determined by where and to whom we are born. I’m blessed to have been born in a country that is not run by an evil despot where the government takes most of the resources while their citizens suffer, a country where I have many freedoms. Compared to a huge percentage of the world I am wealthy, but I live month to month; one crisis and I could lose everything. The way economics work it is much more likely I will fall into poverty than become a millionaire.

Could I give more of my money away than I do? Sure; however, you can look around and see that it is questionable how much it helps. Does it get to the right people or do the corrupt governments take it? If it gets to the people do they even know what to do with it so that it can really help them? It is sad to see so much poverty and suffering, but me giving away all I’ve earned just adds me to the problem; it wouldn’t be enough to pull anyone out.

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Inner monologue

An American born woman travels to a poverty-stricken country in hopes to find a way to help. In the safety of her hotel room, she gazes out the window and reflects on what she sees: poverty, war and inequality.
We hear her inner thoughts on the situations at hand. And she asks herself the same think we’ve all wondered at some point: are we truly helping solve the problem or are we just a part of the issue? We who live in countries with more privileges take a lot of our daily lives for granted. We have a tendency to want to help but with no idea how to truly make a difference.

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A Must Listen

Stunning. This piece asks huge and necessary questions for this moment. It’s dense, demanding the listener engage. In a world of too easily digestible junk food, this is a wonderful feast that demands to be shared. More than worth the work to digest this work.

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it's... a lot

beautiful and fast and intense and heartbreaking. superb performance. give it time it takes a minute

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Captivating

Lili nails the tone with discovery rather than blame and as a result we are left to ponder. Exquisite writing comes to life.

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Loved Lili Taylor,

Lili Taylor performance definitely brought depth to this Character’s timely conversation Re: cast, class, and privilege.
the story did good work in baring witness to the hypocrisy of “sympathy, and charity”, of “wealth and labor” as it relates to those born to privileged, and the privileged’s relationship to poverty (and revolution).

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Extraordinary!! I want more.

I didn’t know what to expect, but this was just amazing!! This was thrilling to listen to, and deeply moving. I need more Audible Originals like this!

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