The unfortunate debacle concerning Invisible Children and Jason Russell has brought forth a pressing topic within our culture today. This incident, complex and real, was vomited across the interweb with such rapidity that I can’t confirm Russell was even in the squad car before one of the attending officers tweeted, “LOL #irony.”
We have an unnerving tendency to spin everything through the prism of our own significance. What would otherwise be seen as a tragedy has instead manifested itself as a microcosm to a bigger issue in our generation. The same people goofing on Russell seconds after his detainment were the ones broadcasting their concern for African children days earlier. With the growth of social networks and their role in our daily lives, we’ve never been more brazenly egocentric than we are today.
Don’t misjudge this as a soapbox; it’s hardly even a bar of soap. I have a twitter (@Benjaminholcomb); love it, some may even say borderline-obsessed. But we live in a world today that has given everyone a platform, and the problem is most of us don’t deserve it. Everyone’s constantly updating about the dumbest things; how his or her pizza was “da bomb” or how “brutal” studying is. I’m here to say nobody cares.
And that’s the slimy truth nobody wants to hear: the little annoying bug that crawls on your skin at night when you close your eyes, the one you hope will cease to exist if you ignore it for long enough. It’s the reminder that in this cosmic swirl called life, you’re just a repeating letter in a giant bowl of alphabet soup.
The Kony video, for all its positive intentions and effects in seven days, portrayed the tragedies of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army — through the eyes of a white American. At one point in the film, Russell’s 5-year-old son says he wants to grow up and fight bad guys just like his dad. The onslaught of changed profile pictures and updated statuses that followed across the web worked as indicators of our own perceived placement into the epicenter of an event thousands of miles away.
Too many of us got lost in our own reflection reverberating off a mirror that was supposed to shine light on those suffering children. It’s not the most popular thing to say, but it’s true. Like a goiter hanging off the excess flesh of a sagging neckline, sometimes its best to just ignore something’s existence.
Altruism is an endangered commodity in this world today — more endangered than beluga whales. “Pictures or it didn’t happen” has become the mantra of our lives. We don’t just do Step Forward Day, we have a 1000 photo album two hours later; a trip to Africa spawns a Kodak moment with an adorable orphan and a new profile pic, along with a “changed perspective.” Alas — what’s the point of doing good if no one knows it happened?
It’s not about you.
In fact — it’s never been about you. It’s about those poor kids with the mangled faces, lost limbs and dead relatives. It’s about every person in this world who is less fortunate than you (which means most- check your backdrop right now if you disagree).
The Bible says “… whoever exults himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Next time you back up a line at a food kitchen because you’re too busy statusing about how you’re “blessed” and saint-like, know that none of us care. And I mean that with the utmost sincerity. Do something for someone because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’d make a cool wallpaper photo on Facebook. There’s so much hurt in the world today, and we’re the ones who have the ability to fix at least some of it. But we need to step outside ourselves and start thinking as members of a global community.
Because even though you are just another letter in a bowl of alphabet soup, when those letters join together they can spell out some pretty amazing things, like — I don’t know — compassion.
