What's the point?

Sometimes, lots of times, when I think about all of the problems of the world, I feel despondent. In the end, we, as Americans—and believe me I am just as guilty as everyone else—only care about ourselves. We are concerned with happiness and gratification now. If our actions mean that a person in some other part of the world can’t eat, or can’t survive, it doesn’t matter because we don’t see the effects. We are willing to spend countless amounts of money on entertainment—movies, clothes, alcohol, going out to eat, (include your favorite material passion here)—but how many of us college students give money to charities? What could be done if we used 10, 20 or 50% of the money we would have used on entrainment and used it on the helping people have clean drinking water? What would that world look like? How do we make us aware of our actions to the point of caring about the world? Most of the conversations in which I engage, or I hear, revolve not about working on major global problems but about the trivialities in our lives. Does it matter, in the end, if we talk about the upcoming storm? Does it matter who is wearing what? We are incredibly fortunate! Why do we need to buy? Because we can! As Vroom, a band that I quite enjoy, sings,

I don't believe that you've got nothing to wear
I've seen your closet, decadence resides there

We buy not because we need, but because we need to feel special. However, to be special is to exist! Purchasing destroys our uniqueness. We consume to feel important but by consuming we become just like everyone else.

What’s the point? “The world’s so big and I’m so small,” a Juniata Peace Studies professor once sang. Does “One person at a time do it all?” I hope, but there is no incentive to change. We know the world is strained, through global warming, through increased oil demand, through over 1/6 of the world’s population, ONE BILLION PEOPLE, living on less than one dollar a day! 2.7 BILLION people live on less than $2 a day (World Bank’s website see link at the end). All of these troubles in the world and our actions show that we really don’t care! It breaks my heart. It makes me despondent. I try to talk to people to raise awareness about the problems of the world. But when at the end of the day, we all would rather have fun than worry about Global problems. How do we change this? How do we make people realize the consequences of actions? How do we show people the causality: if you drive everywhere, you are harming yourself and the world? The structures in place have been there for a long time. The structures of violence are so big. How do we change them? I hope that we are able to realize the causality of actions. We must. The world is such pain right now, it is not sustainable. We must find solutions. I hope that nonviolence is the way. It should be the way. It must be the way!

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EXTPA/0,,contentMDK:20153855~menuPK:435040~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:430367,00.html

A must read is Thom Hartman’s Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, (2004) http://www.amazon.com/Last-Hours-Ancient-Sunlight-Revised/dp/1400051576/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/103-0919875-4079043?ie=UTF8&qid=1176621270&sr=1-1