Have you heard about the other side of the world?

Next time you get restless and thirsty for some good thinking, you should try this out;  Get on the internet and look up a country you hardly know exists. For example what's the Republic of Haiti all about? Do you have any idea where it is on a map? I know I didn't until recently. I never got any news coverage  when the earthquake struck there because I didn't have a T.V. and I couldn't find an english newspaper. So I looked for the disaster online, where you can find any disaster thinkable and unthinkable to man.

Apart from the fact that it's the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, I also learned that Haiti is one of those places that had a military rebellion. What a surprise. Do we have any idea what the fuck a rebellion really is? No, we don't. We are on the cozy side of the world. We associate rebellion with light-weighted shit that we here in a pop-punk song. Where make-up and getting rowdy on live T.V. symbolizes a rebellious attack on morals. It's a good thing North America hasn't adopted words like coup de' tat. Oh wait that's a French word, it'll never fly.

I'm trying hard to stick to the point of how Haiti is a prime example of a whole other world ( I believe, it's called a 3rd world), that the majority of us will never whole-heartedly feel enough sympathy and compassion about to help out. And by help out,  I mean actually get motivated and ask some questions, do some research, make some phone calls, influence some people and still feel like maybe you could be doing more. There's no reason to feel guilty about not feeling anything. We're all the way over here. We got our "big" problems under control for the most part. They're over there. It's too far away to care what's wrong with them. Let them figure it out right? I wish we didn't think like this. I wish we could start all over again as a world and find a way to stay united in one big party instead of a giant spherical neighborhood of assholes. I wish I could really get out what's inside right now, but it's too much. I'll do it in doses.

I didn't think I was gonna write anything about Haiti, because I knew that people would see the title and think "fuck, another article about Haiti." And that's the problem right there. Something crazy happens and it's front page news. If it's close to home, we eat it up, we're all about it, waiting for more news to break. If it's on the other side of the ocean, it doesn't matter how tragic it is, it becomes old news. We forget about it, assuming the problem will fix itself, so long as it stays the hell away from our comfort zone.
Now that I'm living in a far away country I realize how ignorant I am as a North American. But I'm beginning to wake up. When serious shit goes down here in Thailand (and surely it will), I want to be here to experience it. I know my family would freak out and never talk to me the same way if I declined to come home, but I don't think I would hop on that plane to safety. I'm being honest here. I would want to witness just how barbarically crazy life can be in the world. And if I could make it so I would want most everyone to see it too. It would change things. The reason we don't  truly feel anything for smaller poorer countries with crazy shit constantly happening to them is 'cause we don't have an iota of understanding for what it's like. Indeed, we are the lucky ones.