The important stuff

On the news today: Palestines living on trash. Literally. Adults and kids alike spend hours a day rummaging through garbage belts to find stuff that can still be sold. That is how they make a living. On garbage.

You wonder. How can something like this exist in this world? How is it possible that people have to live like this, that living beings are degraded to this kind of business?

I think it is important that a question like that hits us in the face now and then, again and again, just to avoid us being numbed. Just now and then - and I guess that is the function of a limited amount of bad news - we should be confronted with stuff like that, to realize again that it happens. And we should make sure we understand what is happening and understand the utter unacceptability of it.

And once we have understood what is happening and accepted it, then what? I like to have a good time, to have fun, to sit down and read a book, to enjoy other people's company in my leisure time, to cook and eat a good meal. I like to enjoy life as much as the next person. But so would these people who are living on trash, and as long as they are there, I am not sure if I understand how we cannot, all of us who are enjoying the good, rich, western life, do all that we can to stop such things from happening. That, it seems, is the most important stuff of all. The rest, in comparison, seems, at least to my mind, secondary.

Best of all, I think, is combining enjoying life and helping others. See my post on Patch Adams for a case in point :-)