The distractingly, numbingly, loudly attractive and available life.

You can stay in your comfortable hideout. With your semi-reality television shows, overpaid-rotting-with-fame professional athletes, staying abreast on the latest comings and going of the newest billionaire heiress. You can throw your money at a cause and pull it out as texture in conversation at the next party you attend. While, you haven't spent yourself at all. Your money precedes you--it's completely detached from You. You sure are a lot of talk. But you hardly step out and walk the path of sacrifice. You expect to put forth that enlightened, insightful, perservered, refined persona of a life story worth listening to. I'm not sure if anything worth any substance at all is ever absent from times of sacrifice. As missionary and author Elisabeth Elliot says,"fulfillment is not a goal to achieve but always a by-product of sacrifice."
Recently, I've picked up reading Mountains beyond Mountains, an autobiography on the life and work of Dr. Paul Farmer. Dr. Farmer was more than aware of the medical disparity between America and other countries, as he spent most of his time working at the medical compound he founded in rural Haiti. In his practice at Zanmi Lasante, creole for Partners in Health, Farmer and his team made common vaccinations like TB available to hundreds and hundreds of rural Haitian peasants. Dr. Farmer talks of the ambivalence of the current distribution of money and medicine in the world and how many in American society are 'comfortable' with this system. By not saying anything, we are surely saying something quite loudly, "We don't care." The majority of Americans are not on the end of the spectrum where their young children are dying of very treatable intestional diseases, or casual cuts turn fatal gangrene infestations. Contrarily, our children have access to leafy greens, colorful and nutritious fruits and vegetables year round, not to mention the option of a free range chicken thigh or a boneless beef cutlet. (Yes, we have all these options for a healthy diet yet we have the highest childhood obesity rates...that's another story.)

On another note of ambivalence, what do we "have-a-lots" even know about the water crisis in the world? We don't shimy down rocky hillsides with 5 gallon jugs, barefoot, to fetch cleanish water for our livestock and families. Are we aware of the statistics that implore it takes; 816,600 gallons of water to sustain the life of the average livestock in a country of abundance (this stat takes into account the water it takes for growing the hay to feed the animal, watering the pasture, drinking water for the animal and cleaning the animal's living quarters.) On a smaller note, but still mind boggling--to produce one cotton T-shirt, 766 gallons of water are consumed, from nurturing the baby cotton seedling to a folded department store product. I gathered this interesting information in the National Geographic Special Issue- Water: Our Thirsty World. Also in this issue was an article titled, "The Burden of Thirst" and I wondered when has or will thirst ever be a burden?! To many regions of the world it sure is a burden. In Northern Kenya, women trek five hours a day on foot lugging heavy cans filled with murky water back to their families and livestock for sustenance. What the bleep are my burdens if they have the burden of thirst? Our thirst in America and other consumerist societies is treated like a pastime; fancy drinks and decorated beverages appeal to our senses and provide us not just with a thirst quencher but an experience. All built around a basic need. Odd.
Most of North America is water stressed according to this National Geographic article. Water stressed areas are those where water use exceeds the natural renewable water supply and puts freshwater ecosystems at risk. Knowing these statistics comes with responsiblity. Intimidating.
So I guess this is where I say, ignorance is bliss? So this numb comfort in distraction and blindness by choice is called bliss now? Yuck. Complacency. I think my immediate response to this is the stirring, 'I have to move or live radically differently somewhere else. I have to escape all these entrapments and see what happens. This can be just as ignorant.
I just hope for more awareness in people.
Almost a reeducation of life values.
I hope for a lifestyle change. Here.
You can live here and live differently than status quo.

Maybe the most befuddling concept of all is that as I write all of this, I'm not astounded at my own misuse of water and resources. I'm running the dishwasher-which uses far more water than hand washing dishes, or as I hose down the patio chairs because I'm going to use them tonight. We use water for so much. It's befuddling because I'm experiencing the very comfortable complacency I am disgusted with.
I guess it all comes down to the notion that at this point in time, to resist is the uphill battle aware citizens must be willing to make, because the ease to live unaware is so distractingly, numbingly, loudly attractive and available.

Check out some pics from the National Geographic article: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/03/water.html