What if you woke up one morning and you looked out the window and saw Death speeding down the road?
In an instant, you would lose everything you had. The house your parents built from scratch and the first ever car you bought.; that lovely watch that your grandmother gave you, the one you were waiting to pass on to your own daughter; pictures of your children that smiled happily at you from the mantelpiece would disappear along with that unassuming piece of paper with your name on it, made out the day you were born.
Every single tangible form of evidence that you had lived - graduation certificates, love notes, keepsakes from your ancestors, your favourite photographs and paintings, diaries and to-do lists – everything was about to vanish into thin air.
If you survived the first onslaught, Death would still haunt you. Your most beloved people would go missing, every fibre of your being would hurt from worry, and then despair. You would have nowhere to go and nothing to do. You would exist but any sign that you ever lived was gone forever. How would you define your life, yourself?
All around you people would walk aimlessly- searching for houses that once stood on their street, for friends and family that had lived within, for workplaces and educational institutions that defined them and their achievements. Everything would fade away into a mass of rubble and mist. How would you walk on? And where would you go?
And when food became scarce and everything you knew and loved was gone, where would you look for hope?
And when would the line between despair and desperation begin to blend?
And what would you do if you woke up like that, without a parent, a lover, a sister, friend or brother, to find that the world beyond your borders didn’t care? That people’s sympathies were restricted to tut-tutting in front of televisions and moaning about it to co-passengers on trains?
How would you feel if the world gave up on you?
I do appreciate that we have all got our own problems.
Financial problems, relationship problems, spiritual problems- there’s a whole spectre of problems that plague us all every day. But our biggest problem, as a collective issue, is the fact that we have become so selfish, with our heads so far up our posteriors that nothing really matters to us anymore, if we are not at the centre of the issue.
We are the problem.
Let me make it clear now before I get a barrage of comments- I am not sitting here on my high horse judging everyone who does not contribute. I am, however, going to judge you if you don’t make an effort in any way.
Apathy is unacceptable.
If you don’t have money, don’t contribute. But do your research, donate clothes or medicines or a list of everyday items needed. If you don’t have clothes or money or any of this, spread the word to people who can afford to give. Talk about it and discuss it. Even if it jerks one out of 50 people out of their reverie, it’s worth talking about.
Do your bit.
Because the world is changing and one day it may be you walking down a road of rubble, down a once-beautiful road, where your house once stood.
Because you owe it to another human being, however far away, however disconnected from you, to reach out.
Or to try.
In an instant, you would lose everything you had. The house your parents built from scratch and the first ever car you bought.; that lovely watch that your grandmother gave you, the one you were waiting to pass on to your own daughter; pictures of your children that smiled happily at you from the mantelpiece would disappear along with that unassuming piece of paper with your name on it, made out the day you were born.
Every single tangible form of evidence that you had lived - graduation certificates, love notes, keepsakes from your ancestors, your favourite photographs and paintings, diaries and to-do lists – everything was about to vanish into thin air.
If you survived the first onslaught, Death would still haunt you. Your most beloved people would go missing, every fibre of your being would hurt from worry, and then despair. You would have nowhere to go and nothing to do. You would exist but any sign that you ever lived was gone forever. How would you define your life, yourself?
All around you people would walk aimlessly- searching for houses that once stood on their street, for friends and family that had lived within, for workplaces and educational institutions that defined them and their achievements. Everything would fade away into a mass of rubble and mist. How would you walk on? And where would you go?
And when food became scarce and everything you knew and loved was gone, where would you look for hope?
And when would the line between despair and desperation begin to blend?
And what would you do if you woke up like that, without a parent, a lover, a sister, friend or brother, to find that the world beyond your borders didn’t care? That people’s sympathies were restricted to tut-tutting in front of televisions and moaning about it to co-passengers on trains?
How would you feel if the world gave up on you?
I do appreciate that we have all got our own problems.
Financial problems, relationship problems, spiritual problems- there’s a whole spectre of problems that plague us all every day. But our biggest problem, as a collective issue, is the fact that we have become so selfish, with our heads so far up our posteriors that nothing really matters to us anymore, if we are not at the centre of the issue.
We are the problem.
Let me make it clear now before I get a barrage of comments- I am not sitting here on my high horse judging everyone who does not contribute. I am, however, going to judge you if you don’t make an effort in any way.
Apathy is unacceptable.
If you don’t have money, don’t contribute. But do your research, donate clothes or medicines or a list of everyday items needed. If you don’t have clothes or money or any of this, spread the word to people who can afford to give. Talk about it and discuss it. Even if it jerks one out of 50 people out of their reverie, it’s worth talking about.
Do your bit.
Because the world is changing and one day it may be you walking down a road of rubble, down a once-beautiful road, where your house once stood.
Because you owe it to another human being, however far away, however disconnected from you, to reach out.
Or to try.
1 Whispers in the wind:
:( it's terrible what's happened. and you've written a great piece. every one of us should try.
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