Someone once told me that all I do is complain, complain and complain about every little thing. That I tend to point out all the things that are wrong or that will go wrong. However, it seems to me that things that look wrong or are wrong are quite obvious. Perhaps not so obvious to many people, but they are obvious to those who tend to look a little deeper and beyond the face value of the world as we see it.
Not that I want to get all fussed up and become the ultimate lecturer on the world around us, but I get frustrated when someone cannot see the obvious wrongs and mistakes that are resulting from those wrongs and make nothing of it. Is it wrong to sniff gas, blow your minds on solvents then eventually blow off life in general? Is it wrong to assume that those wrongs cannot be handled in a way that one or two right actions will make the world a better place to live in? Is it wrong to take action in the face of belligerence and ignorance and then stop when things look okay again?
Sometimes, all the wrongs and mistakes in the world is the world around us and it is all-consuming. It consumes the air that we breathe, the life that makes our world our world, the life that our children live in and eventually, it becomes the right and normal thing to expect when you wake up the next morning. It becomes a way of life and you expect to hear that someone died the last night from their own ignorance, that the store and business down the street got broken into twice the same night. It becomes normal to see our children and their children wander the streets all hours of the night in some sort of inebriated state. Sometimes I wonder if one morning I wake up and nothing has happened the night before whether this early morning peace would become the abnormal, once-in-a-blue-moon occasion. Now that scenario is scary, when all the wrongs and mistakes become normal and ordinary lifestyles become incredibly hard to believe.
This is reality, folks. We don’t need Jerry Springer or any other scrap talk show host to ram this down our throats and permanently ingrain those dirty thoughts in our sub-consciousness; we just need to walk down the streets in our own home towns. The other day I heard from a colleague of mine, who is non-native, complain to me about why I had to take the afternoon off and delay sending him those figures for a project I was working on, and I explained to him that I had to attend a funeral, again, and that it was not just an excuse to blow off work. He was incredulous. “What again, that’s the third time in as many months! When can I get my work plan done?” That was the million-dollar question and I didn’t have my final answer.
Now, some strong and brave people are trying to answer that question with reform and action. They are taking their children and other children into their own arms and telling them that their future will look a lot better than it does today and not to worry, just go to bed early at night and live your life as any other normal child does, safe at home and snuggled in bed, ready to wake to a new world that doesn’t have surly surprises or jaw-dropping stories that I dread to ever write about. These are ordinary people with extraordinary talent to love without fear, to cry in public with real (not crocodile) tears, to hug someone and tell them that life will get better, just you see.
I’m writing this because I am just an ordinary person who can see that the world around us can be made a better place to live and grow in, with a little help from our friends and family. Sleep tight…
