So You Say...

I am focused on my core issue...relationships...and even as I zero in on what has been ailing me...my entire life...I just had a conversation with a good friend about our society's loss of humanity...A man was beaten...robbed...and stripped of his clothing...and dignity...and two people caught it all on video...(pause)....two people caught it on video...I hope I don't need to say that again...two people caught it on video...I'm not sure what cuts me to the quick more...the fact that several random people came together to victimize this man...or that two people would only be concerned enough...to chronicle it for YouTube...

I remember being a child...and people averting their eyes from the bruises and unwashed hair that I sported...but I never imagined their behavior becoming the norm...especially in a society that is quick to throw red paint on a fur coat...or murder someone coming out of an abortion clinic...or chain themselves to a tree and wail about the forest's loss...

I find myself ashamed of the society we have become...with our children sexting...young women and men filming themselves having sex in the middle of clubs...and people believing that Survivor is a real life experience...What has happened to us?  Where is our dignity...our moral compass?  I don't mean...do you go to church?...I know plenty of "religious" people who judge others...condemn their own children to tremendous suffering....and seek to share with others...that they will burn in Hell...

I'm talking about looking in another's eyes...and not being able to victimize them...because you see their weakness...their frailty...and you know...that because you can see this...you cannot look past it...you cannot knowingly hurt another...

Some might see that as weakness...but I see that as great strength...It makes me wonder what the world would look like...if we were willing to sacrifice ourselves for other's safe passage...That's why my grandfather fought during WWII...that's why I have a great...great...great uncle who carried a bullet in his brain...for the rest of his life...after the Battle of Antietam...fighting for freedom...during the Civil War...and then left for Canada...when he realized that the country was fighting over commodities...rather than any man's right to freedom and dignity...

Wait a minute...does this mean...that the situations are all different...the pictures change with each century...each era...but we have always stripped others of their dignity...We have always victimized...and acted out of indifference...rather than conscience...If this is so...are we progressing?...are we regressing? Or...are we just on a hamster wheel...and we feel everything is different...because someone changed the water in the dish...and placed the cage in another location in the tiny room we live in...

I guess we are an advanced society...or so you say...