passion...schmassion

day 10255: a world of difference

Things I was going to blog about:

~ my sister rocks… she gave me a rope for Christmas and disguised it as a kettle
~ if people (i.e. family) bug you about a certain boy enough times, you will start thinking about it against your own will
~ frustration, ice rinks, Ben Stiller movies and one too many drinks
~ bad, bad me
~ Triscuit knows about Crush (and thinks I should pursue it even though we’ve never seen Crush again since… and probably never will)
~ it’s all about confidence, or the perception of confidence
~ now I can play with the big boys (i.e. thumbs up to lead climbing)

What I’m actually going to blog about

It’s funny. What with Christmas, all the extra training for the lead course and all the chilling that I’ve been doing with friends and family recently, I’ve neglected to pay attention to the world around me. I’ve gone through my days (and nights) functioning as a human, but not as a person. I’ve watched the news on television, seen the footage of people and things being swept away, heard about the rising numbers of fatalities, but I forgot to feel. I did nothing about it. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Absolute nada.

I did what so many other people do… I changed the channel, so I wouldn’t have to think about it.

Tens of thousands of people died because a wall of water washed down upon them. The earth’s rotational axis has been thrown off and we’re all hurling through space one thousandth of a second faster. One event thousands of miles away on the other side of the world causing such incredible amounts of death and destruction and we don’t feel a thing - not a quake, not a tremor, not even the slightest smidgen that something so catastrophic has happened.

If it wasn’t for the news and for personal connections, how little we would know about the world around us. How little we would care. How little we would do to help our fellow beings… people we don’t know… strangers we’ve never even thought about… that we never knew existed.

But now I know and it’s hard to get things out of my mind. My eyes tear and my heart cries when I read the stories of people still searching for their loved ones. Things that seemed so important a few days ago now seem petty and insignificant. Who cares what people are doing for New Year’s. Who cares who the boy is actually interested in, or who Triscuit is seeing besides me.

All I can think of is what can I do to help. Is my $100-$500-$1,000-whatever-I-can-afford donation even worth it, or is it just a drop in the bucket when our government is offering $40 million? Can I do anything to make even the slightest hint of difference? I’d like to think that I would make a difference; that my contribution won’t be going towards paying some bigwig board of director salary, and that someone on the other side of the world will have access to adequate food, clothing, water, and shelter. Should I even bother?

Yes.

We all should, if we can. Too often, we stand back and take from the world around us, never thinking to care about it or give back to it… this is our chance to redeem ourselves.

Some friends of mine – Mini-me, Binny, Kapoopie, and my ever-giving cousin Bo, are organizing a fundraiser for the Asia Earthquake and Tsunamis Relief through the Red Cross. Details to be forthcoming as soon as they become available, but if you or your company can be talked into volunteering, donating or some other type of sponsorship, that would be much, much appreciated. Send me a message or post a comment. I will be checking periodically.

Thanks.