I’m sick of myself today, scrolling through Facebook. I saw an ad for Birkenstock slippers—warm, fluffy slippers with faux fur on the inside, made from some sort of luxurious material—and instantly, I wanted them. I wanted to buy them; I wanted to take money and give it to someone so I could slide my feet, clean or dirty, into those fluffy slippers. That was my first thought.
My second thought was about the children on this planet with no shoes. There are children at this moment in Gaza with no shoes, walking amidst rubble, ignoring the pain of shards of glass or pebbles, or perhaps, not ignoring that pain, but crying for no one to hear. They’ve been hurt before and have become accustomed. And I was disgusted with myself. I was disgusted that my first instinct is to think about the world as if it is a place where everyone is as safe as I am. Perhaps someone will ask: So, no one is entitled to comfort? No one is entitled to peace? No, no one is entitled to comfort until we are all entitled to comfort; no one is entitled to peace until we are all entitled to peace.
And I really worry about myself and how far I’ve come since my mind split open, since I began to rethink how I have been moving through the world every single day. Oh, the things I’ve taken for granted. The rubbish things I cannot resist buying, that I cannot resist selling my life to be able to afford. So many of the things I am able to enjoy merely prove that I’m part of an unjust system, that I am part of the problem.
As I rethink where I stand, I’m reminded over and over again that there are other worlds in which people who did not deserve to suffer, suffer every day. And so, I am disgusted with myself. I try not to be disgusted with other people because apart from my shame, I worry that there have always been others looking at me, disgusted with me, judging me, and rightly so.
But today, I don’t want to judge anyone else. I just want to rethink the way that I raise my son, the way that I live. I hope I have the capacity, the courage, and the endurance to be better. Because as I type, as I scroll, and as I am tempted by Birkenstocks, a child who has done absolutely nothing wrong views the world as a place of terror, and it is terror that will never leave them. They will be a man or woman who views the world as a place of terror, and that is not right.
Comments