It seems the more comfortable we are the more fixated we become on superficial things. Being comfortable makes us fussy and finicky. When our basic needs are met, we have the time and energy to expend on little things, things that really don’t matter much in the long term.
You’d think that when our needs are met we’d be inclined to look outside ourselves at the needs of others, at real problems to be solved, at how we could serve. Thankfully, there are many folks like that. You know them, the ones who are always “giving back,” “paying it forward” and quietly renewing the cynic’s faith in humanity. At the same time, that attitude seems to escape many, many more of us. Instead of becoming those who look for ways to help, we turn a laser focus on minor disagreements and dissatisfactions and blow them up into ideological, imaginary wars.
How is it that we live in a time when dozens of U.S. veterans die by suicide every day, families are declaring bankruptcy because they can’t afford medical care, where gun violence has surpassed all other causes of death for children between the ages of 1 and 18, and millions of hard-working Americans can’t afford food for their tables or a house to put a table in, and yet the talking heads and their acolytes spend all their time fussing and fuming over superficialities, hot and bothered over all the ways the ubiquitous “they” are living their lives, enjoying their liberties, and pursuing their own personal happiness.
We make “mountains out of molehills” the way marshmallows in the microwave expand. We “strain out gnats” — what people wear, what they read, who they love — while “swallowing camels” in the form of greed, war, genocide, poverty, addiction and illness.
Maybe we do this because the “camels” are so big and stinky, we can’t dredge up the courage or strength to address them. It’s so much easier to focus on the gnats we think we can control.
By NIKI TURNER | [email protected]
