It tolls for thee

The bell is tolling. And yet no one attends. In fact, I can’t even see messengers lining up to ask for whom. There is no sadness, no regret at the waste of life; just a gaggle of angry commuters.

A human lost their life this day, and yet, here I sit, more concerned with bejewelled than with the personal tragedy that is unfolding.

It seems that it would be easier to teach a duck to play the flute than to explain why this death is important to all of us. No matter how hard I ponder this point, no matter how hard I try to find a reason to care, the best I can do is think about whether I should rest my eyes and fingers now or keep pushing on.

What is wrong with us? Why don’t we care? Why will I be more likely to discuss my bejewelled success rather than take a few minutes to mourn the loss of a fellow human?

I know what you are thinking, it’s just you. You and you alone are cold hearted. Maybe that’s true, maybe I am particularly cold and disinterested, but if it’s just me, then why is no one attending to the deaths of millions on a daily basis. Why is the price of fuel more important than how we get it? Why is it ok to sell coal to countries that kill there own people? Why do we all suffer at the hands of each other, when with a bit of charity and love we could all prosper equally?

And that, my friends, is the rub. For we no longer want to prosper equally; we wish to be individually the biggest, the best, the brightest, the richest, or whatever other superlative floats your boat. Being average is no longer good enough. Hell, being great isn’t either, unless you are the superlative, you are nothing.

I’m not sure when exactly it happened, maybe between oil wars or as a result of globalisation, but suddenly and for no good reason we ceased to be a beneficial society that applauded itself for being communally the ‘greatest’ and started striving to be superlatives in our own right. The result is that we all suffer, for as John Donne so rightly points out, “no man is an island…”

I am not asking anyone to join Medecins Sans Frontieres, hell, I’m not even asking that you to pause bejewelled; all I am asking is that next time you hear the rail guard announce a fatality, take a few moments to mourn. For with each moment taken you move closer to the ultimate goal; to once again be considered part of humankind.