Ponderment

I have recently embarked on a pondering of my egocentrism and insensitivity towards happenings in the world. I feel as though my mind has been trained not to care about the sufferings of others, be it by myself or outside forces. Why is this? Only yesterday I meandered along the streets of Oslo discussing academic underachievement, life and my ever growing mistrust of the mind-boggling tradition of Russetiden when I saw outside Stortinget a crowd of dark-skinned beauties (Russ and not) standing silently with white pieces of cloth tied as gags on their sad faces. We stopped and stood there in pure wonderment as to what this could be regarding. Of course it was the continuing protest against the indifference we show towards the suffering of innocent people in Sri Lanka. At once I felt a sense of shame to the inexcusable fact that I did not immediately realize this.

70 000 people have been killed.

I was also somewhat surprised that I did not see a single pasty face in the crowd. Do we not feel the need to show our support for these people, loosing family and friends? Could it be a feeling of intrusion on their fellowship and their ability to support each other in their time of grief? I don’t know what I would do if I sat as a helpless spectator to the destruction of my country, innocent people being killed and friends and family in constant upheaval and distress for their lives. I might treasure the support of and “outsider” as much as people in the same situation.

But is this what it takes? Must it happen to me before I care? As I stood on the outskirts of the crown I descried a cadaverous older gentleman in his struggle to bicycle trough the protesting crowd. He seemed as faced by what he was bicycling through as he would an annoying shrubbery…

We however stood watching for a few minutes, talked to a man who gave us some information about the conflict and the meaning of the white cloth; after which we lurked silently away from the protest, commenced with our fairly pointless, but entertaining conversation and had a coffee at Café Sør. One must realize that the shrubbery we passed was not much bigger than that of the bicycling man…

In conclusion: I’m an egocentric douche and you may apply me to your fishy vjayjay at will.


xx

Siren