The Human(ity) Crisis
When I lived in Australia, I lived in a bubble. I barely watched television (and therefore didn't see what was on the news), I was so out of touch with the wider world and all I was concerned about was making it through the semester without going broke, flunking or having fallouts with friends due to stress or disagreements. All legitimate (but still relatively frivolous) motivations. I had the dream of returning once again to Europe to live along with my partner and friends, to move on from the mundanity and frustrations of my life and be where I felt I belonged.
Can I just say now how incredibly lucky one is to live in Australia. And how disillusioned one can become from doing so. So cut off and comfortable. It's a great place, but the world out there is equally if not more enchanting. And it is a great source of human inspiration.
More importantly I am learning in this experience of living abroad how unkind the every day person is. We forget to say thank you, we narrowly avoid A beggar in the street by steering left at the last moment. We insult, ridicule, we're jealous of others and incite hatred for others that is purely unjustified. We discourage one another. We poke fun and are sarcastic and dishonest and lie to save ourselves. It comes down to the fact that we are innately selfish.
And we cry about the present crisis with the influx of refugees. We cry about Syria, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. ISIS. The "hopelessness" of the situation.
But I presently ask every one of you this: How about we start with ridding ourselves of our selfish personas, being kind to our neighbours, being honest, good characters to those we currently are within the radius of. Because if we can't even show a gentle heart and loving spirit to our colleague who is a bit "slow" when it comes to getting things done at work, or someone who might bug you simply because of some nominal and irrelevant fact, how ever will kindness breed throughout the world? You want grassroots approaches to solving conflict? Start with your brothers and sisters, neighbours and the guy that makes you that espresso every morning that you like so much. The golden rule has never been more relevant and true: do unto others as you would have done to you.
