Unnecessary loss of human life is tragic

MARK PAVILONS

I find it tragic and sad when human life is wasted.
When someone is born, lives and dies, but whose life goes by unnoticed, it's an extreme waste of potential.
Sure, I get it. Thousands of people, including children, die everyday. Many of these deaths are preventable, but our society has not evolved enough to get concerned about all life around the globe. I wonder just how long it will take before all governments, all people, all religions, come together in some fashion to further the human condition, not destroy it. Doubt I will see it in my lifetime.
When I think about a single, poor child in regions of conflict or famine, wasting away in her mother's arms, I cry. People in small, seaside villages are killed by renegade tsunamis on a regular basis. Entire families wiped off the face of the earth in seconds.
Gone is so much potential, an immeasurable amount of all things human – love, compassion, goodwill, friendship, contributions.
Maybe they were doomed from the start, given their precarious situation.
It's sad that tens of thousands of our fellow men, women and children don't have a chance to reach for the stars, simply because no one cares. If we did, each and every one of them would be properly cared for. Their basic needs of clean water, food and shelter would be met. They'd get life-saving medications and vaccines. They would go to school.
And yet, as the world's billionaires get richer, the poor get poorer and the disadvantaged die. They perish without so much as a thought, let alone any formal ceremony to remember their lives.
Every life is sacred. If that malnourished mother can comfort her kids and make them laugh, is that not important? If the disease-plagued residents of refugee camps can share stories of their ancestors, sing and dance, isn't that what humanity is all about?
If we in the west truly knew and understood the level of global suffering, it would make us sick, more ill than any virus.
We are consumed by our trivial woes and whine about gas prices, a lack of abundance in grocery store shelves, and interest rates.
I hate it all.
I hate that in this day and age, when we develop telescopes to peer into the far reaches of the universe, we can't get homeless teens off the streets. I hate it that we can make self-driving cars but ignore malnutrition, malaria and overflowing refugee camps.
Maybe the pestilence mentioned in Revelation is here, but confined to certain parts of the globe. Take heed, my friends. Fortunately for us wee humans, all prophesies of the apocalypse have been wrong so far.
That gives us more time to get it right.
The plague before us has changed the world forever. It also took many souls from us prematurely – mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. That is also a huge waste, a tragic loss that we can never qualify. How many healers, scientists, poets and philosophers were lost to humanity? How do we replace such enormous talent?
Why did it happen? Can we prevent it from happening again?
Who reminds us, who teaches us, to be kind to the downtrodden? Who leads the way in extending a helping hand? Who's responsible for maintaining the human race?
Yes, my fellow cogs, these are somewhat rhetorical questions. But that doesn't mean they can't be answered or those roles fulfilled.
Who wants to live the wrong life and then die?
Many of our fellow citizens – volunteers around the world – have dedicated their lives to improving the human condition. We have seen a modicum of progress. Infant mortality rates have dropped and more have access to necessities. Yet this work is never finished, not until every last soul is saved and every last person is given a fighting chance.
What if we dropped our designer gloves and hedge funds and picked up shovels and plows, planted trees and turned on the fresh water taps at every corner of our home world? What if we buried our guns and sidelined our tanks, in favour of convoys that delivered hope to the hopeless?
Earth is all we have. It's finite.
Its inhabitants are unique in the universe. Here on the ground, we're not all that different if you think about it.
Prophets came and went, but all shared a similar desire – to unite, to help, to guide and to deliver.
Where are such gurus today? Who will save us?
The rich, those who turn a blind eye, will have little to boast about when the world crumbles around them, fires rage and humanity sinks beneath the seas.
We try to be good most of the time but sometimes we can't be bothered. Often, especially lately, it's just too much work.
Some think its all meaningless in the end. We help someone, give a family member a kidney, sacrifice all the time and the result? We all die anyway!
That's a fatalistic and pessimistic way of looking at things. It's somewhat true, but since we're a resilient lot, we always look for the silver lining. If we can't help everyone, we help one. And that's a start.
If we didn't at least try, it would be every man form himself, like those crabs in a bucket.
What if Mother Teresa simply gave up? What if Ghandi just packed it in?
Maybe it's not about changing the world, but changing attitudes. Perhaps what we need as a society is a course correction.
Just like grandma's famous stew, the only ingredient we need is plenty of TLC.