Uncomfortable

So many expectations, so little time. That's the wonder of America - the only reason that people look up from their own lives is to impose their assumptions and values (as they call them, however valuable they may actually be) on someone else.

I am being imposed upon.

Not by any specific person, but by a society that claims comfort as its highest good, and money as its surefire means. Go to school, get a good job, buy a nice, comfortable house, buy a car with comfy leather seats, and, if you MUST travel, make sure to go somewhere nice, comfortable, minimum three stars.

And the problem is that I start to impose these values on myself. I've heard them preached from that glowing pulpit box too many times. I've listened as the conversational subtext of almost every man I know drowns out his inspiring words, shouting "Don't take risks! They lead to lack of comfort!" And at some point in my childhood I began to believe it. Take it for granted is more accurate. It has become one of the basic assumptions of living: "Life's hard, seek comfort."

But where does comfort leave us? In fact it leaves us wherever it found us. “Why move? I'm comfortable.”

Comfort is the great pacifier.

That is why people shy away from discussions of human rights issues. If any full-blooded human being actually understood, in the true empathetic sense of the word, the impassable hardships that other human beings are suffering at this and every moment, they would be horribly uncomfortable. And this is why we tend to see those suffering the great injustices of the world as slightly less than human. After all, if they were just like us and these atrocities were being perpetrated upon them then we might have to do something. But as it is, it's too bad for them that they’re families are being wiped out, but we have to go to the office.

And to get rid of any twinge of discomfort that may remain, there is always the time-honored method of distraction. Focus on your work, your friends, your car; focus on anything but that which makes you uncomfortable. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of mind, comfort.

BUT! out of sight, out of mind does not mean out of existence. Whether you acknowledge them or not, there are malnourished Romanian orphans being beaten by jaded government employees right now. There are Asian women working 16 hours a day in 100-degree heat for a wage that leaves them just shy of the local poverty level. There are, right now, Nepali villagers being held at gunpoint and forced to choose between a corrupt government and a violent insurgent army, both of which threaten the chooser with death if he chooses the other. While you make up your mind between the $5 mocha and the $6 macchiato, there are millions of children wishing after an elusive dinner that they haven’t seen in days, weeks.

And, RIGHT NOW, I mourn because I am one of you. I am guilty of all of my own charges. I am weak-minded and distracted. But that doesn’t mean that these people don’t exist. And it doesn’t mean that they couldn’t use my help.