A moment.

Again, I find myself dwelling on my past mistakes — wondering about why things are the way they are, how things spiraled out of control and what led to what is. It’s strange, this life. People make plans and wonder what happened afterwards.

In an instant, everything can change.

Today you can be on top of the world; down in the dumps in the next. Success or failure. Success or failure — one second, a minute can make a difference… a big difference. I watch “The World according to Monsanto” again, and I wonder what I can do. I can’t even help myself… hahaha!

I sometimes feel like am drowning in a pool I can never swim out of… but then I hear from a doctor friend and his team in the West Bank, struggling to get their medical equipment and supplies confiscated by Israeli troops. The Israeli government couldn’t help, nor the German embassy (they’re mostly Germans/Europeans). They were there on a mission to operate on children whose limbs were torn during Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

And I suddenly feel very very small, including my problems.

Then I get new data from ASEM in Mozambique and get new info in the course of my research. How children continue to suffer in Africa… people suffering all over the world. People unable to meet their first level needs (using Maslow’s model)… this again, makes me feel less significant.

It’s sad that in the midst of the knowledge we have, and the constant bombardment of information, a lot of us choose to immunize ourselves in indifference or some sort of “shallow sympathy”.

But I guess something is better than nothing. And some would argue “life is short, might as well enjoy it”.

Carpe diem — – people have chosen to interpret it in different ways. Do you “seize the day” and live it according to how you choose to live, or do you “seize it” by living it well… do all the good you can do now because tomorrow may never come.

We choose to live in a bubble of luxury (or “pretend luxury” — that’s how I call it). And to be in a place where real world topics are avoided or not openly discussed, a place where people choose to cover themselves up in the armor of consumerism, perhaps conscious or inadvertently trapped, where the trappings of an easy life seem easier to come by, is in itself a form of misery. Covered as we are in expensive rags bought at grotesquely exorbitant prices… is it a new drug? Or an old one disguised as something different?

Yes, people take comfort in knowing they “can afford” to buy the same bag Paris Hilton or Ivanka Trump is holding. Can’t blame them I guess. Artificiality is so attractive sometimes. And who doesn’t want to escape sordid reality?

Sigh.

I look around me and see faces, lives haunted by similar worries and fears, facing guilt in various forms and dealing with it… or not. For one, it may be “Will I have anything to eat tomorrow?”. For another, it’s “Will I fail yet again?”

We’re in the same place, like it or not. Crawling our way to the end of all ends… digging up our own graves.

My apologies for sounding so morbid.

I revel in it, hahaha. The dark humor. I enjoy the darkness much as I enjoy the light of day.

Such is life. It’s all just a matter of time, right?

And here I am again thinking about life.

It’s a daily struggle, but I made a choice to live it, and to live it well.

I hope I don’t disappoint… any more.

Still, I am grateful to just be. And then there’s God.

© Lovely Claire Dangalan, 2012

(As posted on my Facebook wall 30/11/2012)