Sunday, January 22, 2012

The deception of perspective

"A well nourished Sudanese man steals maize from a starving child during a food distribution at Medecins Sans Frontieres feeding centre at Ajiep, southern Sudan, in 1998"  

Look at this child. The food would be wasted on him. He would eat too much of it, if he could eat at all, and would be sick, vomiting it and not being able to control his hunger. The ideal situation would be for someone to give it to him little bits at a time, but there's no logistical way to have volunteers do that for everyone who needs it.

For the man stealing the food, it is sustenance. For the child, it is a cruel delaying of the inevitable.

Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today. Once we forget that morality is nothing but a herd instinct in the individual, we forget that our purpose is to overcome the weak in favour of the strong for the eventual benefit of an entire species.

It is absurd to cling to hope when through hopelessness we define our reality.