To Care or Not To Care?
When i was in high-school, whenever a person would show that they have feelings, they were considered to be a loser, the weak link of the group and everybody would make fun of said person. The normal next reaction would be friends not wanting to hang out with you, and because it was cool to bring down the person with feelings, they would stand you up, run away from you and laugh at you behind your back.
Rejection is tough to deal with, so you learn to shut down your emotions and play along. Before you know it, you only care about your well being. You don’t care about how bad you hurt other people, it doesn’t matter that you feel love and kindness, you have to act tough and cold in order to survive the angry mob mentality. Ignorance is celebrated, insensitivity becomes standard.
I was there, I know it’s true. I did my best to not show affection and love and the only consequence was that I hurt other people as well. I made others go through what i went through myself, I knew it and ignored it, and in the end I hurt even more.
Peer pressure is such a bitch! A lot of the human rights violations are the result of peer pressure, if you think about it: not having the strength to tell mean people to go fuck themselves resulted in racism, hate, violence, crimes against humanity. The way we interact with each-other, as society, never ceases to amaze me. We tend to follow others that we consider are cooler / better/ smarter than we are, and we ignore our beliefs and who we really are. Personalities get shifted, feelings are being left out and we don’t care about anyone else but ourselves.
Care. That is what it all comes down to. At what point in our lives we learn to care not about how others see us, but about how truthful we are to who we really are? When do we feel strong enough to do something because we think we should, not because we are expected to or just because other people do it? When will we replace insensitivity and ignorance with care?
Why would you care that some women are being raped and murdered in South-East Asia, when you are so comfortable in this little coffee shop with your laptop and coffee? Why would you care that so many people starve to death in Africa, when you’ll go home and have your nice warm dinner? Why would you care that so many people are being abused and tortured, when you can just have your fun on your nice warm side of the world? Why would you care that so many people don’t have access to basic needs to live, when you want a better car?
Because the more care you bring into the world, the less room there is for hate and sooner or later, this will benefit you as well.
As I write this I can’t help thinking about what will others think of me after reading it. Will I be misjudged and thought of as weak because I care? Thankfully I learned from my mistakes, and I am just doing what I think is right, and that makes me stronger.
There’s no point for freedom when ignorance is celebrated and I am done with being ignorant. Freedom of thought, freedom to be me, freedom to care.
Do you care? We’ll see tomorrow, December 10! :)
Tags: Abuse, activism, Blogging, burma, Darfur, human rights, human rights day
In celebration of its Anniversary, “One Day for Human Rights” is an awareness campaign aimed to promote and support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
[...] insightful look at the human rights issue can be found in the blog One Day For Human Rights: To Care or Not To Care suggested by Sandy [...]
Dear Anca.
Thank you for this brilliant article.
I enjoyed reading it very much and i very much appreciate the way you so openly connected to me… without even knowing.
I can very much feel you’re point and it makes a lot of sense to me.
I admire you’re courage and it leaves me proud of you and me and all the people that do care.
Furthermore you’re way to put it is motivating.
We must never give up caring.
Not only for the fact that we need the appreciation of others and it’s nice to be needed or to be comforted by our fellowship.
The way the world works just makes me sad too often, and also i have been rejected, which ofcourse is not nice…
But i cannot put myself in a blank place-i am a westerner myself.
Socialized on the ‘bright side’.
Do we need to try and see it with loving kindness…?The way people act because they just don’t know any better and some souls are just too poor to stand up and say:
‘I have to draw a boarder against you’re behavior, i cannot share you’re point’
Because the fear of loss and lonelyness is hidden in every corner.
Such as the abused may go out to abuse later on herself/himself or the beaten child may become a slayer.
This is not a nice picture, i know.
We know it happens every day Though.
Thus i do care a lot i wanted to become a social worker.
Meanwhile i think: Can i cope this work? Will i be able to work for a higher goal while suffering depression and personality disorder?
Shall i perhaps better participate in a movement by writing articles myself and at the top of it:
Find the self asteem to be loyal to myself, begin with myself and just do what i always wanted to do which is art.
At least stop thinking ‘i am being selfish and egocentric if i focus on revealing my dream’.
At this point what you wrote comes up in my head: ‘what will others think of this?Will the ones i love judge…?’
Maybe we’re all not so different in the end after all.
I think with more empathy and understanding for the cruelty going on it may become easyer to say:’fuck you, you are not doing me and the world any good!’… or in a less harsh way by having empathy we can leave out hate.
By forgiving those who do the tornment we can cope better.
If we pick up the hate that cycle can never end.
We need to get down there and open up the dialogue to those we subconciously disregard just as changing shitted, awfully stinking baby nappies.
Let’s try break the cycle somehow!
Thanx a lot Anca, you made my day next year 10th dec i am with you for sure!!!
Thank you, Amber, for your awesome comment! :)
If you feel that doing social work would affect you that much in a negative way, try doing things that will not get you involved to the level of affecting your every day life, but still doing something about making the world a better place.
I had the same worries myself: how could i do this without being constantly angry at the world and hating everybody? We all know that doing this kind of work takes a lot of strength and patience, because accomplishments come slow. So I asked Jack Healey, the man who got me started with human rights and who’s been a human rights activist for more than 30 years, how does he manage to do this and not go crazy or become clinically depressed? His answer was very simple, but made a lot of sense: he said he does not focus on the end result of his work, but concentrates on the process and the efforts that he puts in it every single day, so he knows that if he takes little steps every day, eventually the changes will come. :)
This is one of the main reasons for which I am not trying to convince people to become human rights workers, but just to make them care about these issues and spread awareness – and the first step is realizing that caring makes a huge difference! :)
So thanks for caring – you are one of the few that did this year. :) I really appreciate it! *hugs*
Anca