Changing the World, Changing *My* World

I want to change the world. One of the reasons I often want to win the lottery is to be able to do something to change the world.

But I also want to change my world; I want to buy things for myself or be able to create some kind of magical, mythical or philanthropic persona by buying things.

For instance: I think I've talked about my fantasy of driving up to my brother's house in a fancy new car (recently: BMW Series 7), ringing his doorbell and collecting my belongings that he's storing in his house and driving away. In my recently imagining of this scenario, I debated whether I would tell him that I'd bought three (three!) houses and had more than enough space to store my stuff. I debated it because it showed weakness: was I just saying it to show off or to shove it in his face? I couldn't say no.

I imagined one of the houses I would buy, that it would be right smack downtown and that it would be huge. I think you can still get a lot for a million dollars in this town. (I'll have to check that assumption with Realtor.com.) I imagined how I would offer an entire floor to my one housemate, giving him a kind of freedom and luxury he doesn't have now but which I think he might enjoy and I feel he deserves, for the kind of person he is.

Now let's talk about changing the world.

There is an organization that I've volunteered with in the past that recruits tutors for underperforming students. They have a building in one part of town but have started a couple of remote site programs, too. I'd like to buy houses in the neighborhoods by those schools so they could convert them into site buildings and run the programs out of proprietary spaces.

I thought about this because there's a building for lease at the end of my block and I thought: I'd like to lease that building. At first, it was for no purpose at all; it was just to show "strength," in one sense. Then I thought: well, if I want to start a neighborhood training program for local teens to learn office skills and job skills, I could base it there. I could have classes in different computer applications and have tutoring sessions as well.

Internationally, I'd like to build refugee housing. I saw a report the other night about Syrian refugees moving into various countries around the Middle East and I wondered how one could help make the experience a little better. One way would be to provide better facilities, either through some kind of temporary housing (a giant Morton building? Katrina cottages?) or maybe building some kind of waste treatment system or providing composting toilets.

Of course, there would be other ways to enrich their lives; maybe I could help set up some kind of educational program for the kids and an artisanal program for the adults; try to give everyone a sense of purpose and normalcy.

Back here in the U.S., I'd like to buy airtime or commercials. I'd like to make commercials criticizing or satirizing other commercials or selling techniques; I'd like to try to educate people about what commercials try to fool them about. People are more and more media savvy, but maybe if I made "joke" commercials that spoofed the techniques it would be more fun and educate people more easily. And it could be something fun for people to look forward to.

I should write out in more detail these different plans so that - if I came across the money or wanted to write a grant - I had it laid out for someone else to see. But generally my ideas are about creating space for people to learn and live (which I think is at the heart of everyone's philanthropic drives).