Imagine

Imagine I have just woken up. Imagine that my room is of a size to comfortably take the bed,the wardrobe, side table and bookshelves, heaving under the weight of many books. Imagine that next to the bedroom there is the bathroom and other bedrooms. Imagine downstairs the lounge the kitchen and a fridge full of food. Imagine outside the front door sits a car and beyond a well maintained road,other houses are similar and not far away is the small supermarket. If I walk, or drive the other way, is the small market town of Bishops Stortford, whilst to the south/east the river Stort and the tranquillity of the river bank.


Imagine awaking in a room stuffed with people, brothers and sisters,Mother and Father all sleeping in the same room. Imagine the noises and the many interruptions to ones sleep. Imagine the call of nature drawn to a smelly hole in the ground 15 metres away. Imagine the 50 metres to the single water tap. Imagine, above all, last nights hunger,that deep unsatisfied demand from ones body for food,a hunger which will not be satisfied today, or tomorrow. Imagine the 5 mile trek to school, to sit on the dusty floor, no books to follow the lesson, no pencils or paper to capture the facts. Imagine that this is as good as it gets, there is no sense of an opportunity to get out and away, only the deprived continuum.

Imagine imagine imagine, but we don't. We only grumble at our lot in life as we contrast ourselves with others close by.


What a cruel irony that our lives are dependent on chance. The chance of where we are born and to who we are born. We place so much value on "who we are" in the context of where we are and the current circumstances that we forget to place ourselves in the context of humanity at large. We judge others on our own small experience, we criticize others on not having our values without realising how important the chance element of where and to who we were born colours virtually all of our ability to evaluate and reach balanced opinions.   

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