Mad World

Was? Es ist einfach? Dann war es noch nicht in meinem Kopf.



This morning I went from esoulate-night @ staubsauger (the tiniest club I´ve ever seen) to a bakery down the street, having a cup of brown water and some cake. I had a look at all these busy people, collecting bottles, selling coffee, cleaning the streets. Doing what they got to do.
Watching them, I felt so unimportant.
Right now, they sell drugs in Boston, pray in Kuala Lumpur, conquer villages down in the D.R.Congo, starving in Eritrea, I thought. They shoot people, and I am sitting here.

Every day, I can see pictures of war on TV, in the papers.
I don´t mind. It means nothing to me. Just pictures, just stories.
No matter whether it´s fictional or not. There is no difference between war in Africa and George Orwells 1984 – for me.

“Realize” is not as precise as “vergegenwärtigen”, but I think, in this moment, in these bakery, I realized what´s going on. Serious case of empathy. It´s a mad world.
I felt ashamed for my ignorance.
While you read this, people are murdered, slaughtered, raped and mutilated. People are starving or dying on adiposity and cancer. It means nothing, neither to me, nor to you.

I claim that I keep a professional distance to these events. It´s a bloody lie. Otherwise, if I remind myself all the time to all this cruelty out there, it would turn me crazy.

I had chosen the right profession.
I am not going to help people, to improve our situation.
I have to report, to edit and to publish stories. In other words: I get paid for being an ignorant asshole.

Mad world.

I saw this documentary about civil-war in Congo, about Laurent Nkunda. There was these French reporter, his presence (and the presence of his camera) saved the life of a young man, who otherwise would have chopped into pieces. I felt lucky for this guy…
… but I thought, we´re journalists. It is not our business to do so.

I felt ashamed for myself.