Welcome back home dude. Thank God - literally - that you're OK.
People, next time you're out in town and someone is collecting for charity.
Give them some money. You can afford it. If you think it's too much like
hard work to give money to good causes then think about the people that are
out there during today's messed up world putting their lives on the line to
try and help others.
They get little money and little recognition. Aid workers put themselves in
dangerous situations, not for any macho or materialistic reason, but for the
simple, almost forgotten trait, of selflessness.
They work in the most politically dangerous places on earth because if they
didn't, nobody would.
It's easy to not care about the third world because we're not in it. It isn't
easy to relate to famine when we are trying to fight obesity. It's hard to
image political persecution and a government that kills, starves and
withholds medical supplies from it's own people when western politics can
grind to a halt over the life and death question of a ministers sexuality.
But we have heard this before. The arguments have been laid out so many
times and through so many mediums that it becomes blasé. There is nothing
new to bring to the table, no new argument that will sway our judgement.
The human character is not stupid. We have the ability to weigh facts and
make decisions. The tragedy of all this is that the human character has
weighed the third world, and decided it doesn't care.
Thank God for those few that do.