They are photographs capturing what has happened around the world in the past year. I went to that this year: twice.
The first time I went with Cassie. The second time with my friends Lenny and Lorenzo (from Italy). It was interesting to go twice. The first time was almost like being overwhelmed with information. You get the picture, and then the description of what is happening or what the picture is depicting. The second time, though, you already know the basic descriptions and can somehow appreciate the pictures all the more because of it. I found that interesting.
There were so many pictures covering a huge range of what's happening. There were happy pictures like Obama's speeches, snapshots of the Olympic Games, stage performances, etc. There were cool nature ones of animals, a jaguar hunting an antelope, lightening discharges in an ash cloud created by a volcano...
But as always, with the media, you get some pretty shocking ones too. There were lesser known problems covered like a family living in poverty. But then there are, of course, pictures that cover things like the invasion of Georgia, preteen transsexual sex workers, the disaster in Myanmar, and so on and so forth.
Two things alarm me here:
First, that I hadn't heard at all about the terrorist shootings at the train station in Mumbai. How did I miss that?? I read CNN as often as I can, and somehow this escaped my attention. The number of people that died were in the 50s. I was really upset that I hadn't heard about this.
Secondly, I was greatly disturbed by how quickly I had forgotten about the things I HAD heard about. Things like the disasters in Myanmar... that happened a few months ago. I remember sitting in my room with my friends looking up all the stories we could find so that we could a.) stay informed, and b.) be able to pray for these people. We get so caught up in our own lives and our own problems that we completely forget about everything else, no matter how big.
It just proves everything is relative. Right now, there is a lot of damage from natural disasters in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Samoa. I'm afraid that within the next 4 or 5 or 6 months, I will have already forgotten about this. I pray that I won't. But in all reality, I probably will. It makes me wonder what that says about us as humans. Do we forget because we don't care? I don't think so... perhaps it's a defense mechanism. I don't know, now I'm rambling. Running away with my thoughts--perhaps this should be in my other blog, "Welcome to my Mind-Please excuse the mess." O well. Too late. And I'm too lazy to copy and paste this to my other one.
The people in Samoa right now will not ever forget what's happened. Children who survive will have these memories into old age. Relatively, this is one of the greatest things that has happened in their lifetime. But to someone like me, who is an outsider and hasn't personally suffered the catastrophe, it is a passing event that I hear about on the news.
Ah... I'm still rambling. I'll stop now. Just putting my thoughts down on... internet?
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