The Question . . .

Once in a while, I read a line in a book that stays with me. This one comes from a book I read in college, American Pastoral by Philip Roth:

“Never in his life had occasion to ask himself, "Why are things the way they are?" Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed.”

It's the truth. We are all so blessed that when senseless things happen, we ask, "Why?" It's easy to forget that so much of human history has been utter misery. Mumps, measles, whooping cough & polio once took a deadly toll on children; now they are all easily preventable by getting vaccinated. 

Once upon a time, if a mother's blood type was incompatible with her baby's, both their lives could be in danger. There could be a miscarriage, or the baby could be born with Rhesus Disease. Some historians think this is why Anne Boleyn was never able to bear a living child after Elizabeth I was born. Now a shot can prevent this from ever happening.

There have been times when I had to choose between buying gas for my car or groceries. If I chose groceries, I ran the risk of not being able to get to work and missing out on 8 hours of pay. If I chose gas . . . well, I already knew feeling hungry wouldn't kill me. Even then, though, I knew I had a sort of safety net. I could ask my family to buy a few groceries to get through to payday.

In short, in America we have been born into a land of abundance. I'm not saying there's no one that went to bed hungry in the US last night, or that we're not plagued by violence, death and sickness. I'm saying we've been told that this abundance is the norm, it can go on forever, and we will always keep improving.

I don't think we can. My generation has been taught to consume. That we don't have to give back. That we can leave it up to others to change things, now cut out that press conference and get back to that "Modern Family" rerun. What will happen when we're in charge? 

It's almost criminal how we don't give back. We look at all the blessings of our life, and our answer is, "More. I want the man/woman that I want and I won't settle for anyone else. If they reject me I will never let anyone else in. I want a well-paying job with health insurance and paid time off and if I can't get exactly what I want, well I'm too good to flip burgers." We believe that our possessions will show people what we are; we're right, but not the way we think we are.

So what is the question that the title refers to? For me, it's "What can I do?" What is it I'm supposed to do? Do I even have the ability to help others? Because I believe we should be helping each other up, not tearing each other down. We have this abundance, we are able to fall back. We should be giving back.