Life in the Ivory Tower

A picture of a devastated woman whose house behind her was just devasted by the earthquake on Wednesday.

Taken from my volunteer friend's blog.

ok. I just experienced really bad tremors at home. my house was shaking, and i thought my readings of social support systems were making me giddy.suddenly i felt everything shake, and then i looked at my 'window blind adjuster' and it was swaying. that was when i decided it's time to get my ass out of the house.went downstairs. everyone was there, some were running down the stairs.

called buddy wl to reassure her i'm ok, and she forwarded an sms to me from the news station:'Singapore buildings sway after earthquake 7.9 in Indonesia, quake has tsunami potential.'

my goodness, when i read the word 'tsunami', my whole heart sank. it was almost i was immediately transported back to Banda Aceh and the faces of the children and the destruction came back to my mind.I sat down at a corner to pray for the people in Indonesia.

At that point, my neighbour and his wife came home from work. They parked the car, and asked me why everyone was downstairs. I said 'oh, the building was shaking. there's been an earthquake in Indonesia.'To my shock, his wife replied 'oh. i hope there arent cracks in my house.'I nearly couldnt speak anything in reply.

Honestly, I couldn't believe what she said. So i offered more info: 'oh, they say the quake has tsunami potential.''oh ok. it must be quite bad huh?'

'i hope there aren't any cracks'

I read that and I could immediately emphatise with my friend's frustration at how insensitive some people can be. Sometimes, I don't understand why we can be so dumb and so immune to other people's suffering. It is as though we have taken vaccination jabs that make us immune to all of this! All of us here live in this wonderful Ivory tower where we are so sheltered from the pain and the bloodshed. If only we can detach ourselves from the materialism of society and to really look closer at the lives of the more unfortunate, we will find ourselves changed.

How many of you therefore know that the average Cambodian worker only earns about $40 a month? How many people know that diamonds that we wear on our fingers are actually the reason for civil war and mass murder in Africa? Do we all realise that when we shop for branded clothes, we're actually spending enough money to save a child from starvation in India? I wonder how many of us are bitterly aware of that.

I don't think that we should all then become super money-savers or that we should not go shopping. On the contrary. After all, even if we save 100 bucks from not buying that pair of heels, we will eventually spend that sum on something else like a textboook or on food. I just wish that everyone would be more aware of their extravagance and to just be conscious of the fact that they're so blessed to be living the lifestyles that they're living now. That because of this awareness, they would then be more sensitive to the sufferings of others. In life, there may be times when we cannot do anything to alleviate the pain of someone else. However, what we can do is to bear witness to that suffering so that no one need suffer alone.

No longer will we then obsess over that unattainable goal of being Number 1 all the time. Nor will we be worried about whether we're going to land that grand job that pays 10,000 per month. Who will then care so much about make-up and appearances? What is a Prada bag's importance as compared to the life of a young child?

Recently, I just met up with some friends for dinner and was disappointed. I was disappointed that they were still enroached in old mindsets and upset that there was nothing left in me that wanted to keep in contact with them and to share with them feelings and thoughts, as friends will. Their conversations so wrought with immaturity and insensitivity, it pained me just to sit there and listen. I guess the others may see it as a case of Mich being emo again, I believe it's not. After all, its not the first time anyway. Although this was a brutal decision to make, it was a decision that I've hesitated on for so long and I think finally, this will be the last time that I ever have to make such a choice. We've all grown and the paths we take now are different and no longer converged together in the same destinies.

Perhaps I just cannot stand how vulnerable I've become while they've built such resistance.

The reply from my expedition leader on my friend's post:

Sometimes we are more bothered with how we look, what we own, and the "cracks" in our possessions than the cracks in our hearts.Singapore is a tiny dot surrounded by so many other countries and we can be blown away anytime. Since traveling to Cambodia and Philippines, my global perspective has changed.Guys, it is not their Indonesia or their Myanmar. It is our Asia we're talking about. Now we might have the tremors, who knows when we might also get a quake.Taking about ownership, let's not be minding our own cracks.There are cracks in people's hearts that we need to be mending instead of the cracks in the Auntie's house.

Let's all remember that.