It's getting harder and harder to sit and watch ... at least it should be.
Perhaps 2023 will be the year where the average person will go from watching to taking action. On what, you might ask? Homelessness? The environment? Mental health? Crime? Global warming? Pandemics? The economy? Political beliefs?
Yes. All of the above — and more. We've been watching over the last year or two ... and for decades ... continuing waves of human blight hurl themselves against our unbelieving eyeballs on a daily basis. We actually watch, on newscasts and other information sources, people dying.
We see pandemic numbers rolling up and up in front of our eyes every day. We see images from an on-going war, coverage of long-standing violence between religious factions who have been fighting for generations, giant tidal surges devouring coastlines, savage fires destroying entire communities. We see men and women in our own communities forced to live under cardboard roofs. We see others who don't get to live, killed by senseless actions.
We watch, and we hear. Sometimes we might even comment. "Hell in a handbag", "Not like it was when I was growing up..." and all that. But then we watch again, somehow surprised again, as the next round of strife is paraded in front of us.
It's surreal to think what we are "getting used to" in today's society. And that is the problem; no one should be getting used to what is happening around us. That kind of complacency, that apathy, only grows those issues.
Has homelessness in your community reduced over the last 10 years? Do you feel more or less safe on your streets today compared to five years ago? Do you listen to the politicians, media, doctors, the guy at the grocery story who tells you there's no children's Advil for your sick child, because of global "supply chain issues"?
For the most part, we simply watch. We say, "OK" — and wait for it to get better ... or for it to continue to not directly affect our lives. But the reality is, this is our life.
Things aren't getting worse 'as' we watch. Things are getting worse 'because' we watch.