Front, middle and back

In the midst of all our self centered interests and wants, the world is falling apart. This time, the anarchy long outstanding on the West Bank is aggravated by the conflict between Lebanon and Israel. It's the same shit but different day. Almost like substituting a player on Street Fighter/ Xmen multi-play. You change Ken with Beast to fight Ryu and Cyclops. Different players but same shit. If you hit Ken in the face, he will retaliate. And you will in turn retaliate. So at the end of the exchange, you are simply biding your time to see who KOs first. Fights will almost be the same, in whatever form. Casualties will always be casualties.

I mourn the fact that I am the typical outside-looking-in metropolitan middle class, who can only watch CNN and flip through pictures from newspapers over the conflict. It's just air time. It will come and go. What could I possibly do, except for the occasional sigh of resignation, folding of the article and then wriggling my ass to the nearest Starbucks.

What can we do? My first reaction is to say: Nothing. I am but one person. And of that, I am ashamed.

A client of mine in KL has been uncontactable for weeks. We have been close but have not met up in months due to my travelling and work schedule. Asked his brother, who is also in the industry about his whereabouts, he mentioned that he had volunteered for humanitarian work in South Lebanon. I felt pride. And yet, I felt ashamed of myself. For discounting the power of one. I was going to pack my bags and enjoy a trip to Japan, where I would blow money over the superficials... yet another handbag, yet another shirt, yet another pair of shoes.

I want to do something. I need to salvage the human spirit that had been until now, buried under capitalistic ideals and dreams. I want to feel humbled and grateful for Life's necessities that I had been taking for granted all this while. It will be huge slap in the face for spoilt first-class travel bitch me. But we all need to be rudely awaken by the bigger picture sometimes. That's when the coward retreats and the spirit triumphs. And we will be better people. We will be better people.