Monday, October 10, 2005

Overwhelming (link)

Yeah, even I, in my obsessions, can see an overwhelming need.... I poke my head out of my turtle shell and realize... here the sky is blue, days warm, nights crisp, and there are no real problems. Sure, we have complaints--who doesn't?--and I can complain with the best of them. Yeah, life isn't fair. Yeah, some people have all the luck.

But we really have been luckier than a lot of people. In five minutes, tens of thousands of people were gone. Are we getting inured to disaster? Is this just another one of them?

I thought I wouldn't miss a chunk from my unemployment check this week. Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) simply goes where there's a need. And that seems to be everywhere, of late.

If the above links work the way they are supposed to, you can visit their site and donate too.

2 comments:

Beverly said...

Inured is a good word. With the world smaller and the media larger, it seems like something has always just happened. Once we probably knew only of the disasters in our own territory (however defined), likely few and far between, and that was enough to absorb. Now disaster's almost "normalized." We ARE so lucky. But scared also, knowing next time it could easily be ourselves in a shattered city.

I like Doctors Without Borders myself. I just make a monthly contribution that turns up on my credit card because they need the money all the time. No end to trouble, as they say.

It's not been a time for much writing. My mind is roiled. Larger themes seem necessary but the right words hard to reach. Or just the opposite, some small thing worth noting.

Unknown said...

Yes, I just keep coming back to the thought that it is impossible to get the mind around something of that magnitude. And would I want to? I, who cannot sit through a movie? I just want to do something, do what I can.