Do We Only See What We Want To See?
An average person has a very short attention span; believe it or not, it is even smaller than the attention span of a gold fish! Because of this, we tend to focus our attension on things that are either really important or eye catching. Did you even notice that attention was spelt incorrectly?
“Humans see what they want to see.”
― Rick Riordan, the Lightning Thief
On the 13th of November in 2015, multiple well known locations across the city of Paris came under severe attacks by bombings done by ISIS. This killed 129 people as well as caused severe injuries to over 300 more. In response to this, France bombed ISIS hotspots in Syria while the world responded with its support for France, where you might remember the hash-tag, “#PrayforParis”.
But what about Syria? For nearly five years, a civil war has been taking place in the country and we sometimes see pictures or videos of civilians, especially children who have come under the attack o
f ISIS militants. Yet, neither we nor the world did anything in support.
Why only Paris? Why not #PrayforSyria or any other country? Is it because it is one of the world’s most popular cities while Syria is not? Aren’t human lives all one and the same? They all have hearts. They all feel the pain. So why discrimination?
But let us leave aside the international community for now and focus on the local community. Did you know that according to the latest report, out of Sri Lanka’s entire population, about 6.7% lives in poverty? That makes one out of fifteen of the populace of Sri Lanka lives in poverty. The number of differently abled people in this country is not small either. But in most cases, we tend to assume that the lives of all others are mostly similar to that of ours, even though we know that there might be special cases.
It is our duty as the abled citizens of this country to look after our brothers and sisters who are in need of aid. Even though they may slip past our attention, we must keep them in our hearts and minds, and always strive to help to improve their way of living. So take a look around, there’s much more in this world than what is in your immediate vicinity.
