We, without souls?

Not to be opinionated, but:

Lately, I've found myself trying to get a perspective on the world.
A few days ago, I opened up a local newspaper and read on one of the inside pages that the death toll in Pakistan, as a result of recent earthquakes in that region, has reached 38,000. Another story, right under that one, told of a Guatemalan town recently buried by mudslides and declared a mass grave of some 1,500 people.
I closed the newspaper.
Thirty-eight thousand people lay dead, others dying, in one small corner of the globe.
Tons of mud and rock are literally all that remains of an entire town in another corner.
The day after I read of these two catastrophic stories, I thought I should bring up the issue to some friends, to kind of vent my feelings and hopefully get support that the world wasn't ending - because, after reading about those two horrible tragedies, it really seemed like I should be looking out for the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
So I brought the issues up on three separate occasions to three separate friends and this is what each of them told me: "Who cares?"I'm not lying when I say that each of them uttered those two horrible words.
I looked at the first guy that threw out this comment with the jaw of my soul hitting my feet in disbelief.
"Who cares?" Are you serious?Last week, an earthquake hit the disputed Indian-Pakistani region of Kashmir. A few days ago, I read about the 38,000 lives lost there on an inside fold of a local newspaper. Meanwhile, the front page - with the supposedly most important items - had a story of how Kentucky's national forests are constantly in natural change. There's a story I can understand saying "Who cares?" after reading. When an entire town in Central America, a region most of us are familiar with, was buried alive, you couldn't find any information about it without first having to look for it through pages of uninteresting, random and, frankly, dumb stories. I think the front page that day had a story on a worthless UK football team losing in a worthless game. Who cares about that one? Heck, I called that at the beginning of the season.But this is different.
Before I go on, let me step outside for a second and get a perspective on the world we all live in, because, last time I checked, we cared about the fact that someone - even just one person - dies.
Hopefully, everyone at this university knows how big 38,000 is. It's about as many people as can fit in Rupp Arena and Memorial Coliseum combined, and a little more then half the fan capacity at Commonwealth stadium. That's a pretty big number.
Now imagine each and every one of those people dead. Not breathing. Not alive. Dead. Like those floating bodies you (maybe) saw on CNN after Hurricane Katrina blew New Orleans away. Katrina was a big deal, wasn't it? The death toll there was less than a thirtieth of what it is in Pakistan. But we cared there, right? It's all we heard about for a week straight.I'm kind of confused when the same amount of people who attend and work at the University of Kentucky have died in a matter of days in a region of the world, and I don't see a thing about it on the front of the local newspaper. I'm a little more confused when people who go to a university and are "educated" don't know that it even happened. It makes me a hell of a whole lot more confused - no, angry - when I explain to this ignorant "cream of America's educational crop" what has happened and they don't feel any remorse whatsoever. And we call ourselves human.
"I don't give a damn about some town that got buried," my friend told me.How can you not? People are people, no matter where they are in this world.
The fact that students at this university and the media that inform them don't care that tens of thousands of people are dead makes me think that I'm in a zombie movie and that each and every person around me is a walking, soulless, emotionless, inhuman, brainless creature. Has the world ended? Is this it? It must be when we don't care about another human being or shed a tear to the horrid situations that befall them. How can we not care?
To the newspapers and TV networks around here, I'd like to thank you for failing to do your one, simple job: to inform the public and make people understand what's important in this world.
To the boys and girls at this university who believe that the two tragic events I mentioned and the people involved with them are as meaningful as the trash you threw out last night, I'd just like to say that you are a joke to the human race you represent.

(Printed in the KY Kernel opinions section, Oct, 18, 2005, ala the University of Kentucky)

Far and Beyond

They told him that the Church was the answer and there he should go to find all that he was looking for. He was looking for a lot.
.....

It took him a journey to find the place, the one they told him about, but he finally did.
The Church was giant.
The building stood stories tall and arched and bent with amazing architecture. It glittered in the afternoon sun, its stain-glass windows casting a barrage of reflecting lights onto the world. It was surrounded by dozons of trees and people everywhere, buzzing with excitment. It, the building, was all that he expected and everything they told him it would be.
.....

He made his way to the front door. The man inside, who was maintaing the place for the time, told him that all you had to do was wait there, at the grounds, sit, meditate, and you would be handed your answer, or however many answers you needed.
It was that easy.
The best place, he said, where most of the pilgrims sat and waited, was outside, on a hill beyond the trees, a hill overlooking the city.
.....

Back outside, the pilgrims marched around him like ants, each one in a different direction.
He found the hill to the east, beyond the tree line, and made his way there and up it.
At the summit he sighed, caught his breath, starred at the view of the city, sat and waited.
And waited.
The people moved throughout the grounds all throughout the day.
The sun set.
The moon lifted.
He sat.
And waited, in the dark.
In absolout silence. Nothingness. Limbo. Waiting.
And there was no answer. No peace. No sound of the end being near. No journey fufilled. The Church did not speak to him.
He sat and wondered and looked at the building beyond the hill, where all the pilgrims went and said to himself, "how can you be so far away when I still feel you in my heart?"
.....

The sun rose, he had no answer.
He left, realizing what lies were.

Karma

Maybe its karma, he tells me; something else that we don't know about that makes the world tick.
I dunno, I guess. The way I see it, the whole world is driving on the highway of life and I've just veered off it. A sign I passed when I did said exit 20 to Somewhere, distance unkown.
That was about the time the road map flew out the open window.
So now I'm driving blind and, lets face it, I'm lost and have no idea where the hell I'm going.
Where is Somewhere?
Where am I right now?
He says that patience is the key and everything will be alright in the end. He's in the same boat as I am. He's a little more optimistic then I am.
"Maybe its karma," he says. "Maybe we've done something to piss someone off a whole, whole lot and now its coming back and doing us in the ass."
I can't think of what that "something" is. I tell him that I need a drink.
"Maybe you were black out drunk when you did it." He suggests.
"Yeah, maybe." I say and there's a scarry thought unfolding in my mind.
If I did then I guess I deserve this winding road of meloncoly.
"Hell."
"Yeah, it sucks. Don't really know what to do, though."
I don't either.
To keep the analogy going, I've been driving in the dark for a long time and have yet to see a road sign, and that makes any journeyman jittery.
Really, I'm just surprised that I have enough gas to get there...I think.

Lyrical Fall

I'm so cool, too bad I'm a loser. I'm so smart, too bad I can't get anything figured out. I'm so brave, too bad I'm a baby.
I'm so green, it's really amazing. I'm so clean, too bad I can't get all the dirt off of me. I'm so sane, it's driving me crazy.
I'm so chill, no wonder it's freezing. I'm so still, I just can't keep my fingers out of anything. I'm so thrilled to finally be FAILING! I'm so done, turn me over, it feels just like I'm falling for the first time.
Anyone perfect must be lying, anything easy has its cost. Anyone plain can be lovely, anyone loved can be lost. What if I lost my direction? What if I lost sense of time? What if I nursed this infection? Maybe the worst is behind.
This is me falling for the last time.

~ The Barenaked Ladies

Thoughts, concluded

This may end up getting deep.
Anyways.
So I'm sitting outside, on a bench, at three in the morning in Boulder, CO waiting for a bus that was suppossed to be here ten minutes ago. There is a couple next to me. They're older then me. They've had more to drink tonight then I have. Its cold and I've pulled out my coat from my bag of cloths at my feet and put it on.
Its Saturday night, but the night is quiet...and I find that uncomfortable on Saturday nights.
We're talking, to pass the time.
"Why'd you come out here?" He asks, sticking a ciggarette in between his lips and lighting a match.
"To see a friend." I say.
"Its a nice place." She says.
"Really nice." I agree.
"I came out here to see a friend once," he says, putting the match to the smoke, careful not to let the flame hit his thick beard. "That was a while ago, you want a ciggarette?"
"I don't smoke."
"Good. Don't. Where you from?"
"Kentucky."
"I love Kentucky! Probably the nicest state I've ever seen. Really. Well, behind California."
"Yeah, can't beat Cali."
"Really can't. Where are you going?"
Back to Kentucky. Back to the life I lead, back to the adventures I seek, back to the school that educates me and the jobs that don't pay me and the people that love me and the house I pay rent for and my car, which is dear to me because it gets me out of the the life I lead and into the adventures I seek and away from the school that educates me and those damned 'work for free' jobs and all the people that love me every so often. But never often.
"To North Carolina," I say. "Then back home."
"We're off to Thailand." She says and I'm suddenly disgusted with the conversation.
"I've never been to Thailand," I say, jealouse. "Why there?"
"To get away."
Same reason I came to Boulder and now sit on a bus bench at three in the morning on a cold Saturday night.
"I understand," I say. And I ask them what they do and they tell me that they work for a non-profit orginization, an NGO, and I tell them thats cool, I've thought of doing that with my life and they tell me its a different life style and that at times they hate it but they stick with it becuase they're doing the thing they love.
"Whats that?" I say.
"Helping." They say with a shrug.
"Trying to make the world a better place. Dosn't everyone love that?"
And they ask what I do and I explian to them what I have written down on my Facebook school profile under 'Clubs and Jobs', though just in a little more detail and they ask me why I do it and I tell them because people tell me that I'm good at those things that I do and that I'm under the impression that life is about doing the things one is good at and they shake their head and tell me that life should be doing the things you love, not what others tell you and I'm listening, thinking.
All of a sudden I realize I can make a difference.
"What needs to be done, my friend," he says, smoke spirialing from his lips, "Is for you to start doing what you want to do."
He's a little drunk and slurring his speech.
"What are you doing here?" He asks again. I've already answered that.
I'm running, fleeing, departing, getting away, vacationing, clearing my mind, clearing my soul, seeing things that I've never seen before.
....
My thoughts are concluded.
....
Don't mind why I'm in sitting at a bus stop half way across the continental United States. Don't mind the fact that its cold out in this story or that its a lonely Saturday night or that I'm sitting on a bench waiting for a bus with two drunks. Don't look for a reason there. Unimportant.
Understand only what needs to be done. Understand that an answer has been handed to me.
"What needs to be done?"
Philisophically speaking, thats depends. On the character.
Sorry if the answer isn't as concrete as the road the bus rolled up on is.
....
I got on the bus and closed my eyes and went to sleep, out cold until another passing light woke me.

Thinking, continued.

As continued:
So I'm thinking, in deep thought to be exact.
Got a moment replaying in my head, here it goes, turn off the lights, turn on the camara, let your eyes adjust as the view on the screen flickers with a 3, 2, 1 and then a black and white image appears and its action:
That face is sitting there and saying that somethings got to be done.
Then the camara switches views and I'm sitting there trying to explain that everything's already been done.
Cut.
So what needs to be done? Theres a fun question and I've been thinking about it deeply for a while. Lets go back.
I'm in class and my teacher- a bigger guy, soft voice, warm eyes, conservative tendencies- asks me why I joined "the profession of lies" which my father fondly references to journalism as. And I'm sitting there looking for an answer and my professor is sitting there waiting for one. As I sit there about twenty or so flashbacks pop into my head, answers which I've given in the past, the first of which starts out "I joined journalism because I liked to write," the last of which starts out "I joined journalism because, really, I can't do anything else but write. Ha, ha, jokes on me, world!" and somewhere in between is the truth and it starts and ends with "to help the world become a better place."
Thats real simple. The truth usually is, after you go through the piles of lies and misconceptions.
"So, Chris, why did you join the ranks?"
I wait and find the real answer through all the lies I've given in the past and finally say: "Because I want to help." But then think to myself: "What the hell can one person do?" and that thought makes me feel tiny.
Two weeks later at a downtown conference over coffee, a breaking point. Boiling point? No, breaking point.
"Why would you want to work here, in international business, in PR?"
"Well..." I pause, a thousand answers run through my head. I think to myself what a thousand people like me would say in my place: to get a job, to get a contact, to please my father, to please my mother, to get rich, to start getting rich, to learn how to get rich, to be the best student ever, to get credit for doing nothing, etc. Why did I join up with political science?
"What if I said to help the world be a better place," and I smile afterward because my smile usually knocks them off balance in odd situations.
"This isn't the best place to start," she says.
But it is a start.
And now I'm thinking. "So what needs to be done?"
"Everything," that face on the screen would say.
And I'm remebering the words of my mentor, the late and great Uncle Phil: "Give 'em everything you've got. Thats about all you have, but it might be enough."
I gotta wonder if it really is.
How about a "TO BE CONTINUED" right here.

Thinking, episode IV

Good music at first, that makes the night promising.
You say that there's something, something thats got to be done. I'm there and listening, thinking that everything's already been done. I'll admit that I was wrong.
Anyways I'm in a field.
Across from me, on the stage, the lead singer says, "Well its just been a lovely night. I love June. You guys have been a lovely crowd. We're about ready to finish up but stick around for all the other guys, I'm sure they're the one's you came to see."
Its a golden dusk and a breeze from the surrounding hills has come and settled in. It keeps out the smells of the crowd, but, for the most part, the stink of pot still persisits.
Thoughts are free falling through my head.
So I'm thinking about whats gotta be done and thinking about it all makes me sick because there is always alot to be done, especially in this world. I turn to my friend and ask him for the rum, even though I hate rum, because I need a drink and I go ahead and pound two or three and chase it with his Coke.
Its good music playing and I'm sorry that I have to see this band start their last song. I'm getting drunker and my group is too and has decided to take a seat in the grass so I do too. The music man at the head of the stage sings into his can: "you tell me that there's something, hell, something that I've done wrong. I can't stand it, just tell me, girl, what is it that went wrong', and he goes on to string away at his guitar.