Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Take my advice...I don't use it anyway SPECIAL EDITION: Perspective



Tragedy and natural disaster happen and people start throwing around the word 'perspective'. Why? Because the only way to make our problems easier to bare is to hear about someone having a worse time that you. I was perusing  my timeline on twitter at the time of hearing what happened in Japan...in fact, that's where I found out about it before quickly jumping on BBC to check it out. Almost instantly, the usually ironic or sarcastically clever tweets (all thought of spontaneously of course) turned to shout outs for Japan, prayers for Japan and general 'I love you Japan' commentary. You almost did a little cringe when people were still tweeting their lame shit as they had obviously not heard what had happened. You know that little feeling you got? It's called perspective. Things you would usually laugh at weren't as funny, they were actually quite irritating. You suddenly didn't really care if your boss was being a prize wanker or if old mate didn't reply to your text or if some nobody unfollowed you.  I can't help but think that these epic disasters, these gigantic fuck show situations, happen to do just that...kick our ass into perspective. You can't do much to help the situation over there, you can shout out 'prayers for Japan' etc...but we all know your ass ain't praying. These situations are disastrous, monstrous, incredibly frightening and sad. But they are only 'tragic' if people don't take heed and recognize. Recognize that what you have can be taken from you at any given second. Recognize your insignificance but recognizing the significance in what you do. People have died, but they only would have died in vain if we don't take the lessons that are so obviously and deliberately being thrown at us here. And recognizing that when the universe talks, we should shut the fuck up and listen.

4 comments:

Grace said...

No one "Prayers" or "is sorry and sends their love" for the people in the Middle east or Africa, no one tries to stop what is happening or talks about what our own agenda has caused (MILLIONS of deaths), but when a Natural disaster happens suddenly everyone becomes a Humanist.

People just hate taking responsibility for their actions, but they are ok with acknowledging death when it's beyond their control.
When you bring up man-made genocide well that is just politically incorrect.

I suppose the real tragedies just never get shown on the news though do they.

Obnoxious Owl said...

As someone who is from Africa...albeit not Ethiopia but still, A third world country none the less, I think that the difference between the situations within Africa and the Middle East are ongoing and seemingly, never ending. I think fundamentally, we are all good people, and I believe (well,I have to believe) that most would like everything to come right...not just the epic natural disasters in our more focal countries such as Japan and Australia, but the endless issues we have on our less fortunate continents.

Basically, people become jaded. I've seen the tourists come to Africa...get shocked by the street kids, give them food, give them money, go back to their hotel and vow to sign up to one of those 'adopt a child' bollocking things. But as the saying goes...out of sight out of mind...they go back home and those kids become distant memories. When something as huge as the Japanese sitch happens, its like a big jolt and wake up call...its in your face and gets people talking.

Africa on the news everyday? 'Oh in case you didn't know, there are people going hungry and ritual killings and rapes are happening' TELL US SOMETHING WE DON'T KNOW!

I agree with you though. The situation in Zimbabwe is perfect example of what you are saying. But unfortunately, its the things that are out of peoples control like an earthquake or a flood that puts things into perspective thus *hopefully* causing them to think more and dig deeper into the sordid fuck show of the world we live in. Even the Bible tells us how God sent in plagues of locusts and got Noah to build a canoe or whatever because of the floods he was sending down to wash people of their immoral and sinful lives.

Call me morbid, but the thought of the world ending makes me pretty excited.

Anonymous said...

Well said! No one could have said it better than you.
xxx

Unknown said...

WORD