Holier Than Thou

Today, there is an article running about change in the world. How change is coming slow to the world. How there is no concrete change identifiable for some people.

While I can sympathize with the feelings that Ms. Bergh has, I don't necessarily buy into the entire mentality.

Change for the greater good might not be recognized because, sometimes, it comes in the form of charity. Although Mother Theresa was an iconic humanitarian, Tatyana Sveshnikova, a Muscovite, spends her nights tending to homeless people in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world. In a city whose citizens might end up stepping over a bloody homeless person who was beaten for what little money he has. Sveshnikova is a young, blonde woman. A so-called "angel in the night." And all she got for her deeds was maybe four lines in a caption for her photo.

I don't like the thought of change not coming instantly because it's not true.

Although J. Robert Oppenheimer ended up saying that he "[became] Death," the tests and use of nuclear weapons spawned a new mentality -- a change in the way the world was viewed from the eyes of people not hanging out with the Manhattan Project scientists and KGB spies. And it happened instantly. "Mutually assured destruction" remains a factor in decisions about politics today, even.

So, yes, while some charity will go unnoticed and some tragedies undocumented, I find it remarkably unambitious to think that you, yourself cannot produce some immediately discernable change.

-Gin