I will speak in the first plural, without leaving myself out to avoid didacticism. We are experiencing an era when misery is constantly increasing but our conscience remains uninvolved. Wars, disasters, refugees, hunger, drownings, and yet we continue as if we were spectators to something that does not concern us. Reality is heavy, and the ease of forgetting is lighter than any moral burden. Thus, indifferent, we choose comfort. We avoid looking pain in the face, because pain demands responsibility. And responsibility demands reaction, questioning. It demands that we first change in order to change our world. I am frightened by this indifference of people and there are times when I feel strongly the tragic phenomenon that the world has been divided in two. To those who carry in their minds and hearts the pain of extreme events that are happening in our country as well as in various countries around the world, and to those who pass by indifferently between the events as if they were invisible. Especially for these days of holidays, I see carefree people laughing carefreely, masquerading, dancing, posting moments of celebration and happiness and I wonder, how do they manage it?
I'm not saying we shouldn't have the right to joy and be depressed. We all need it and I wish life were lighter and we could enjoy it in all its glory.
But, at the same time that we are laughing, somewhere else a mother is mourning her child.
At the same time that we raise our glasses, somewhere else people are drowning in a sea that should be a passage of hope and not a grave.
At the same time as we dance, somewhere else entire peoples are struggling to survive among ruins.
It's not bad to enjoy life. It's bad to be untouched by anything.
To live as if we are not part of this world, our own world that suffers. To consider that misery is always somewhere else, that it belongs to someone else, without thinking that when your neighbor's house burns, at some point yours will burn too. Indifference is not neutrality, it is complacency, and I confess that I cannot be indifferent, as if there is no darkness spreading around us. I cannot pretend that everything is fine, when it is not. However, I want to believe that under the veil of indifference that has covered us, there is something that can awaken us to escape from our misery. A spark of empathy for what is happening to the other. We are a people who understand pain. And this is our primordial duty, not to allow ourselves to get used to the pain of others.
But let's keep the ability to feel alive.
Because if we lose caring, then we lose everything.
photo xusenru, https://pixabay.com
