Cinders and Nemo

Why is it that we are so triggered by injustices such as the over-consumption and growth (including obesity) of the West, while millions maybe billions starve to death everyday? I think about the little cat Cinders at the fire, having to hunt and find most of his food, and weighs about 1/3 of our beloved but fat cat Nemo, and no one questions why one is on the verge of starvation at any time, while the other has never missed a meal in his posh little life. No one I know of is advocating that we should take food from one to feed the other. We are content to believe that Cinders is happier having to hunt for his food, maybe go further and say that that’s the price he pays for his freedom to roam as an animal should. Is human life worth more than animal life? There is every indication in our world to support that this is so. But our hearts and more the point, our primal instinct for survival (we are animal after all) are badly shaken when confronted with images of emaciated children near death. It opens a floodgate to emotional responses such as pathos and compassion and indignation, but let’s not deny nor forget vulnerability and fears, of pain and suffering, of poverty and deprivation, of our own mortality.

So if there is anything to save, I feel it is time to save the rest of the world, the flora and fauna, the environment, which is their natural habitat. Restoring some balance in the face of all the destruction human beings have wreaked upon all the other species and creation will bring us to the place where we can best ‘save’ our own species, save our children from hunger and violence, save ourselves from diseases of body, mind and spirit. Then we stand a chance of ‘giving peace a chance’ and ‘end racism’ and ‘equality for all’.

I must admit that even as I write my impassioned declaration (another one of my soapbox specials) on behalf of the rest of the world victimized by humans, I sense in the back of my mind something else... that what we called ‘injustice’ is just another belief, whether it is me pointing finger at my own species, or anti-violence humans pointing fingers at violent humans, all these ‘injustices’ happen for a reason, a reason too big for us to see in our little moment in Time, too big for our ego-minds to wrap around and ‘justify’. That it all serves a divine purpose. So folks (that includes me), go home and do your own work on yourselves. Fix what’s wrong inside each of our selves, and the outside will take care of itself.

Still, I pray that God/dess takes good care of both Cinders and Nemo.