After the blog yesterday, I received the following email from an interested reader...something to think about:
Ron-
Hello Ron: The only way I’ve had any success (limited, I admit) in getting someone to care is to make it personal.
Anecdote: Airport layover in the Reagan years. Bumped into a young friend on his way home to El Paso from DC. He’s a lawyer, aide to Sen. Graham (R. TX), bright, articulate, former client of mine. Had 2 junior assistants with him. Very young, well dressed, going places. I overheard their conversation: discussing the possibility of a nuclear exchange w/Russia, how many dead the US could withstand & inflict & vice versa. The numbers were numbing (20 or 30 million) and being bandied about as if they were football scores. I broke off my conversation w/ my lawyer friend, approached these two young men and asked if they were married with children. Of course they were, as I suspected they would be (can’t go places w/out being married w/children in those days). I asked the kids’ genders and ages, told them my grand kids were about the same, casual airport talk among strangers. Said I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation and the number of dead they thought acceptable. I said, “Let’s imagine ourselves in that situation and somehow we, you & me, are spared, but our children & grandchildren are exposed to radiation. There is nothing we can do but watch them die an excruciating death (here I went into some pretty gruesome detail). Now we are only talking about 6 deaths. Are those numbers acceptable to you?”
When it’s personal, a person cares. When it affects a community, the community cares. When it affects a nation, the nation cares. But we are so purposely insulated, so willfully distracted, so overwhelmed & bewildered by the complexity of our lifestyle & world, that we shut ourselves away inside the TV/iNet/WHATEVER & medicate ourselves into some pathetic nirvana that serves no one & nothing…and thus we as a society don’t care about what truly matters, care about what is of utmost importance, care about what is required to make a better tomorrow.
To make a better tomorrow personal, could we turn off the lights (literally) one day a month?
To make a better tomorrow personal, could we park all vehicles one day a week? For one hour across the nation? For one minute around the world?
To make a better tomorrow personal, could we skip lunch?
To make a better tomorrow personal, could we give of ourselves two weeks a year to help the less fortunate? One day a month to give of your time to a worthwhile endeavor? One hour a week to someone in need of comfort?
You with your editorials make me care.
Thanks Ron.
Mack
