I see almost everyday what is going on in the world we’re living in and I can’t asking myself how things would turn up.I have been writing/posting here for more than a year. I didn’t plan anything, but I knew it wouldn’t be updated regularly.
I didn’t write for anybody but me and a couple of people. Most of the notes are sarcastic, ironic, dunny, etc. Some would call them conceited. And will consider me that way too, as well.
I wanted to point out people’s worst side. I came up with as many reasons as I could to show why people lie, betray, hate, kill, etc. And this is what I will probably continue to do. But, I also think that everybody has a positive side as well. Whether it can be seen or not we all have a positive side. What matters is to know how to reach that sensitive side and open ourselves. This time I am not going to talk about all the troubles that may occur when you consider yourself vulnerable.
I know there are some people (enough, even more than I have ever imagined) that constantly read my posts. Most of them never commented and I couldn’t interact with them. Some of them wrote to me directly by e-mail, never online, to be seen by the rest of the readers. What is important is that I know that these people do exist.
I don’t care who you are (don’t take this word by word) I don’t care whether you harmed somebody, who you lied to, how many parallel lives you have, who you cheated on and why. I want now to address to the positive side that is you. And, maybe for the first time, I am honest. This shouldn’t be taken word by word either. It doesn’t mean that until now I have been lying. Not at all. I mock at many things.
Maybe it is because this way seems much simpler. But I think that despite this worthless world we’re living in and despite the uncivilized country we’re living in, we can do something good.
I know that I want to make something good about that, I want to make a difference.
It is more difficult to do it on your own, it is even impossible. That’s why I’m writing to you.
So I have a few questions for you, questions to which you don’t have to answer here, not even to me. Answer to yourselves.
1. How many times have you been helped voluntarily by someone who acted selfless
How many times did you voluntarily help someone and how many times were you selfless, unselfish?
2. How many times you needed someone’s help and although it could have been quite easy for them to help you, they didn’t? And still how many people have done it?
3. When you were a child, was there anything that you didn’t have? And if yes, what was it? Was there anyone who could have offered you that particular thing (it doesn’t matter who, it can be anyone, even a stranger)? The answer to this question matters a lot and I’d like to know it. How would you have felt if you had what you lacked?
4. How many persons would you still hug even after 20 years of absence? And how many persons would hug you?
5. If you had the opportunity to help a stranger, without asking for anything in exchange, nothing material, would you do it? And why?
There is something I have been thinking of for a long time. But I probably didn’t have the proper courage to throw myself into such a project. Maybe it was because I didn’t know whether I’d be supported in this undertaking. I put it off on and on, I had other things on my mind, I waited a certain moment. But there is no “right moment” (but there is “the wrong moment”, which is not the case).
Sooner someone asked me if I am a good person or a mean one. I thought it was a joke so I answered consequently. Still, I consider myself a good person. Only the people around me can confirm this or not. Then, this person, who was 17 years old, told me that all he/she wanted was to know that there were good people left, otherwise he/she no longer wanted to live. And then he/she left. He/She was under the impression that I am not a good person and I hope from all my heart that the part about his/her wish to die was a death was just an unpleasant joke. Still, if it isn’t, I hope he/she keeps visiting my website.
I want to save the world. It may sound absurd for some of you, but I still want to do it. If not, at least I want to try. But I can’t do it on my own. I can’t help all the people, that is for sure. But even a smile matters. And that person will remember that someone made him smile and maybe, I hope, one day he’ll do the same thing for someone else.
And you never know how much you cand help somebody. So, I’m writing this for all the people who read my posts. I’m writing for those who post comments often, those who post comments rarely and for those who don’t comment at all. And I’m asking you: Will you help me to save the world?
No, it is not a joke, It’s not even abstract. It is something concrete that I can’t do it on my own. So I need some good people who are willing to bring smiles on strangers’ faces who don’t know yet what life has in store for them. I don’t know how I want to do it, I don’t know the amount of bureaucracy I have to face, but this is less important. All I know is that I have an idea that I want to make it real.
I won’t tell you more now, I won’t tell you why you should do it; I won’t give you any reason. The reasons should be yours.
I’m sitting in front of the computer and there are so many things I am thinking of right now.
For example we’re living in a world where the values have been reversed, where the wheel spins too fast to see what are the needs of the one next to whom we’re passing by in a hurry, a world where we raise our children fearing that the role models shaped and promoted by mass-media are far from the aspirations of any person with common sense, that the school h/she is about to attend might offer to them, before the chance to learn,
the misfortune to discover drugs and prostitution, in a society where the elder die forgotten by the rest of the world, lacking basic health care after a life of work.
There are so many things going through my head right now, that I don’t know what to begin with. For example, I have recently read that the big tobacco companies British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris sell cigarettes to underage children from Nigeria in order to raise the number of the tobacco consumers in developing countries.
The strategy came up in the moment when the sales for cigarettes diminished in Western countries.
I have also read that there are about 300 000 children soldiers worldwide and 130 000 of them are in Africa.
A journalist tells that children are taken away from their families from an early age. They don’t remember much about their relatives, and think that wearing a gun and killing the people you meet in the street is a way of life, is the only way you can live your life.
Talking about this subject, I’m thinking about Africa and everything that is going on there. I don’t know whether this is necessarily an alarm or maybe it is.
A cry for help for the children and the population from Africa, that die every day, in a significant number, because of lack of water, food, proper medication, because of too much indifference and ignorance coming from us, those who are protected by the comfort of a civilized and developed society, that keeps us away from all those needs.
It’s been more than a month since I have received by mail a movie that terrified me and I cried a long time after I had seen it, but the subject tormented me, haunted me continuously, like a ruthless shadow, blazing, destructive. Water is life. Every living organism has a large amount of water which constitutes their physical structure: we, humans, have in our bodies around 60% water, fish have around 80%, plants between 80% and 90%. Water is necessary in all chemical reactions that take place in our cells and is also the environment through which the information is transmitted between the cells, in our bodies.
I have made some research on the internet, in various magazines and journals and I discovered some striking resultas about this subject. Here they are:
* 1,2 billion people worldwide don’t have access to drinking water; this means around 1/6 of the world population;
* every 15 seconds a child dies because of the diseases caused by lack of water. This means approximately 6000 deaths each day, similarly to the crash of 20 passenger planes;
* since 1950 the globe’s population doubled, and water consumption multiplied six times;
* the simple act of hand-washing using water and soap may reduce by 40 % the danger of diarrhoea diseases and implicitly the deaths caused by this disease;
* Asian and African women carry daily approximately 20 liters of water on their heads, almost the same amount that is handled by the airport staff while loading/unloading the luggage from passenger planes.
How much water do you use every day? You probably never wondered. We are not curious because water is at our convenience. I remember that in the spring of 2004, Vancouver City Hall imposed drastic limitations for water consumption, as far as watering the gardens, the lawns, etc.So people from Canada no longer had the privilege to water their gardens, and leave the plants dry out in the sun, become brown, damaging completely the tone, the shades, the beauty of the environment where we live and that we are so proud of, and the African children don’t even have enough water to drink, to wash their hands, to cook. Is is the irony of fate? Is it sheer indifference?
I will now tell you something about water consumption in figures:
* in developed countries, an average person consumes around 10 liters of water per day for drinking, washing and cooking. The same amount of water is used on average in UK when the water is flushed.
* the average amount of water necessary for obtaining a kilo of potatoes is 1.000 litres; a kilo of wheat - 1.450 liters, and a kilo of rice - 3.450 liter.
* Agriculture is the biggest water consumer – approximately 80% of the world’s toatal consumption;
* annually in Africa people work around 40 billions of hours just to carry water.
So things aren’t too bright. The perspective is quite bleak. These sources of drinking water will become scarce, until water will become an acute problem of the mankind. What is impotant is that we are all witnesses to this waste. How many times do we let water pour uselessly in the bathroom or in the kitchen, while we are busy doing something else, things which are more important or less important? Not to mention the use of our own washing-machine, watering the lawn, as I mentioned above.
What will happen when one of the developed countries will start having problems with the water supply? They will do the same thing that is going on now, when they have problems with the oil supply.
They will go and take water voluntarily or by armed force from those who will still have. Of course they will motivate it by saying that there are weapons of mass destruction, or a dictatorial government, or they belong to the wrong religious confession …
In the Middle East, water is a problem and a constant facture of tension which causes pression between states, not to mention other problems which are present in the region. Water constituted a continuous negociation element between Israel and Syria.
In the last years, Iraq, Syria and Turkey used verbal threats concerning the rivers they share. Egypt’s former president – Anwar Sadat – stated that after signing the peace treaty with Israel in 1979, his nation will never start a war against them, unless they will be forced to protect their sources of drinking water. The same comment was made by the former king Hussein of Jordan, who mentiones that water can be the only reason that could cause a war between Jordan and Israel.
On an individual level, we can contribute to this battle for saving the drinking water, taking care of our own water consumption, limiting it to the minimum required and not wasting it.
It is also worth mentioning:
* a tap that drips continuously can causes losses of up to 90 liters per week.
* brushing your teeth while letting the water drip continuously can cause losses of up to 9 liters per minute.
* let the lawn grow. It will stay green for a longer period of time and will need less water.
* a 5-minute shower will require only 1/3 of the water necessary for a usual bath, saving up to 400 litres per week.
* even if it is very warm, the lawn needs to be watered only once a week. Too much water can cause the weakening of the roots of the herbs, which will come up.
* the automatic watering system uses too much water uselessly. You need a proper watering you don’t need to flood the lawn. Such a system can use in one hour the same amount of water consumed in one day by a family of four persons. You’d better use a hose with a manual watering pistol, so that you can control the amount of water used.
* the new washing-machines are made so that they consume less water. Those from class “A” are the most economic.
* Water your garden in the coldest period of the day. That way, you reduce substantially water evaporation.
There are probably more things to be discussed about the consumption of water and how to save it. About what we have to do and what we really do. And about how our planet will look like in 50 or 100 years time. “Why should I care?” will ask some of you, using the saying “After us the flood“?
Yes. We don’t care much. Have you ever wondered how much food you use and how much you throw away, because it is too old or you don’t feel like eating it, or because it is too salty or too sweet, etc.? How much bread, groceries, fruit? Try to monitor this aspect. You will be surprised. We are a nation of wasteful and thoughtless consumers, without a real concern for tomorrow.
And to give you something to think about and meditate intensely, I will show you a scene which is actually real. It is a picture taken by Kevin Carter in Sudan in 1993, a photo that has shocked the mankind and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. It captures the image of a Sudanese girl who collapsed to the ground, lacking the energy to continue her way to a camp of the United Nations which was only a kilometre away from her, where she could receive some food. In the background of the photo there is an eagle, which is waiting patiently for the girl to die, so that it could eat her. The photograph doesn’t know what happened to the girl, because he left immediately after taking the picture, shocked by the tragedy of the situation. Three months after the event he committed suicide because of the depression suffered.
It is terrible what is going on. Just when you think that this is the world we are living in and we don’t do anything to save it.
Every minute a woman dies because of the pregnancy or complications at birth. This means over 10 million women in a generation.
Almost all of these women – 99% - live and die in developing countries. A high maternal mortality rate is an indicator of a deficitary health system. It also shows that women’s fundamental rights to life and health are violated.
Most of the deaths at birth can be prevented. In industrialized countries, the deaths caused by pregnancy or birth are rare. The mortality rate in Eastern Asia and Latin America diminished as well – even by 50 % in some countries. But in Africa and south of Asia, complications of the pregnancy and at birth remain the most frequent cause of death for women. In some countries, their number is on the rise. And when women suffer or die, children suffer and die too.
We know what is necessary in order to save lives: universal access to birth control in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies, access to medical care and assistance at birth, fast access to obstetrical care in case of emergency. The statistics terrify you even at a glimpse …it is awful and I can’t help thinking that our planet suffers because of the indifference and negligence of some people who don’t care about a thing. The pollution is another factor that leads to the destruction of planet. People are not always aware of the harm they cause, but with your help we will make them think of the consequences of their activities on planet’s life and of course on everyone’s.
People have caused pollution because they wanted a more comfortable life and damaged the soil, the water and the air, leading to the extinction of many species of plants and animals.
People face various diseases caused by pollution and society’s interventions to the environment provoked serious damages.
Together we will understand that we are living on the same planet that we all need to look after! What nature has created in millions of years can be destroyed in a few days, months or years. You must know the nature’s laws and act accordingly so as to avoid its destruction, you must learn to protect, care for and preserve the elements of the environment. Mankind cannot survive without nature, where as nature can exist without the humans’ presence.
I want to ask you to think once more each time you are about to do something and why you do it. Think of all the people who don’t have as many possibilities as you have, who have a completely different life, not because they don’t want to, but because fate decided that they belong to a less fortunate world. Contribute to charity each time you can. Learn to share with the others what you have, even if it is not much. Don’t do it waiting to receive something in exchange, but do it for yourselves, as if that person that you have helped is someone close to you who needs help or maybe u had the bad luck to be born in one of this countries.
