Some may say that I have a stone-cold heart.
I am not sappy. I am not one to make large emotional outbursts. I prefer calm and steady to turbulent and rocky in all situations. In addition to this, I consider myself a realist. And above anything else, I refuse to have a bleeding heart.
The States is so shrouded in a sea of wealth and utter comfort that people sometimes forget that life is a struggle. It is meant to be difficult. It is also meant to be unfair. That is human nature. Millions of people around the world break their backs and even sell their souls – daily – just to have a chance at seeing the next sunrise. This is reality. We, as a whole, will never be able to rid the world of this hard-working and abused subset of people. If the world is continued to be run as it is today, i.e. in a capitalistic fashion, we will always have people at the bottom rung of the ladder. It is unavoidable.
Some people get such a sickness of guilt when they think about the poor developing world that it makes them ill. You can see their eyes flood with tears as they watch the images of poor third world villages flash onto their television sets. They sit there and stare, in absolute sadness, at the starving children covered in flies, and they feel deep down, such sorrow. If they are so bent, they will get up from their comfy form-fitting sofas and chairs and make the five minute call so that they, too, can donate but pennies a day to save some unfortunate child halfway across the world. And after they put down the phone, they feel better. They have done something, however small, to make the world a better place.
I am not heartless. I want to help people, help to make their lives better and happier. It sounds idealistic, and it is idealistic. This is what I’m realizing during my time in Mauritania. I have seen how little those ‘pennies a day’ do when they finally reach Africa. I have seen the work of bleeding hearts, seen how they make bad situations worse, seen how emotionally charged people rush into doing something because “Something has got to be done, now!” I have seen all of these good intentions pave a dark and gloomy path.
What exactly is better and happier anyways? What might be better and happier for me is not necessarily true for others. Things are not always as black and white as we would want. I can’t save everyone. I can’t make everyone happy. I frankly don’t even care about everyone the same. If I must choose between bettering a friend’s life over that of a stranger’s, I wholeheartedly choose my friend’s.
Some people take for granted the superficial-ness of ‘plastic America’. They automatically feel sad for those things that we have learned to feel sorry for – starving kids in Africa, for example – and they worry not about those problems that our society wishes to sweep under the rug – the psychological problems that most youth in developed countries face on a daily basis, another example. We all are in fact conditioned so well, that even I find myself fighting a gut instinct to deem the prior more worthy than the latter. Is it really? – I ask you.
Before I ramble on even further, here is my message. Love and care about everyone around you. Don’t have a bleeding heart for Africa because it is Africa. If you want to make a difference in someone’s life, start at home. Make a difference in the lives of the people you already know and care about – your family and friends. Everyone has problems. They might not be as “sexy” as AIDS or prostitution or starvation or etc. (note: I mean “sexy” as in issues that get the most press time, the most attention, the most hype, etc.), but they are problems just as important and life threatening as those aforementioned. Get to know your family and friends. Ask them questions. Care about them and show them that you care. Show them that you love them. We all have but this one life – as far as anyone has been able to prove to me – so why not live it trying to make a difference in the lives of those closest to us first.
I’m terribly sorry about this. I’m not one to make soapbox speeches, but I wrote this while angry an impassioned. Since is it now written, and since I have nothing else to post, I post it grudgingly. Again, I’m terribly sorry. I will refrain myself from further such outbursts.
3 comments:
Ritesh,
I don't think you should feel the need to apologize for your post. There's nothing wrong with what you wrote. It's all true. For some reason, we are taught to feel sorry for the poor of the 3rd world, while we actively ignore the suffering people in America. There's no good reason for it that I can think of, but I see it happen again and again. It was true in college, and grad school, and even in some of my professional settings. And I don't think this mentality that the problems of the rest of the world are more important will ever change until some of us actively decide to stop feeling guilty about what happens in other countries and put some effort into improving what happens in our backyards.
I'll second Jayeeta.
There's no apology needed for any of what you said. You are not hard hearted. I don't know you as well as she does, but I know that. What you are is open eyed and fairminded.
It makes very little sense to me to worry about distant problems and ignore close ones. The worst, obviously, and most common practice, is to ignore problems unilaterally. That is hard hearted. To see that action at a distance is less efficient and often less successful than equally important action up close and personal, and conclude that in a world with problems everywhere the best and most practical approach is to work close is nothing but fairness and common sense. To bring attention to the fact, however unstylish it is to do so, that the domestic problems are being ignored in favor of the foreign is nothing but brave.
Nationalism, isolationism, xenophobia, and jingoism are all purely destructive forces, but tending to the needs of your friends and community, because no one is in a better position to do so, is a lost and forgotten virtue in the gale force propaganda of the global economy.
ps, tangent, call it what you like:
Prior to the spread of christianity through europe, much of european culture and morality was predicated on that one axiom; look after our own, because we're all we've got. It led to a lot of suffering and bloodshed and unfairness, though that might have had more to do with our old friend economics, and it also led to tightly knit social communities.
I'm not at all sure the common interpretation (perhaps 'practice' would be more accurate here) of christian doctrine to look after everyone, even at the cost of your own ('shirt off your back') is the enormous improvement so many consider it to be.
At the least, I personally lay the blame for 'local apathy' squarely on two things, that doctrine, and the apparent desire of many americans to distance themselves from reality, be it being able to assume their contributions really did help the starving kid, that the steak they're eating led a happy life and met a quick minimally painful end, or any number of things that allow the common delusions to be unchallenged.
Dude... why are you apologizing? Doing so only makes you seem like an emotionally unstable kid who's going through mental puberty.
What you wrote is pretty much true. I don't think anyone can say otherwise as you've actually witnessed first hand everything you talk about.
You have no idea how pissed off I get when seeing former classmates get into a rage about Darfur.
Darfur? WTF. I mean the only reason they give a crap is because the media spams it. There are situations around the world with an impact equivalent to Darfur, yet I don't see these liberal protestors mention.
I mean come on. Look out our society first. We live in a society where war veterans end up on the streets. We live in a society where health-care is in such a shit-hole that a lot of elderly and poor people can't afford the medicines/treatment to stay alive.
Bah. I say lets take over the world and then nuke it. Deal with the absolute... it is the only way.
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