Don’t turn away
Years ago, Susan Sontag was speaking in San Francisco and I went to hear her and she said she had just gotten back from Bosnia and that if you weren’t paying attention to what was happening there then you were part of the problem. I felt guilty but also as if I had been caught in the headlights. I admit to being ordinary only because I had to laugh when I was reading another friend’s blog and the responses were numerous and all so erudite and I looked at the one comment showing up on my blog that week and it was about how good my hair looked!
So I think that on the scale of Paris Hilton to Susan Sontag, I’m firmly in the middle with perhaps a lean towards Sontag. And I’m frightened by what I don’t know as in the age old question how should I be spending my time on this earth on the scale of self-indulged pleasure to altruistic service. Is being a yoga guru better than being a researcher of media? Should I give more money than I do to charity? Is there something I can do right now, today, that would help work towards a solution to the crime in New Orleans? Is it possible to address the need for poor children to have access to a warm meal every day, a book read to them when they are a toddler, and clothes on their back – love in their heart?
I thought about all these things when I looked at this one image on my niece’s blog.