Why are we human?

Subject: Why are we human? Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:23 pm

I'm putting this under life issues because it technically involves someone's life.

The last time I made a post here I highlighted the psyche behind social acceptance and how that pertains to your own life. I made sure to detail how I'm not that smart, and really only 17 years old. I don't remember who and I don't really have the time to go back and check, so whoever did say that shout out to you for making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Anyways moving on, I'm a moderator on a Minecraft server, recently there's been a lot of drama going down. One of the owners was demoted because of his actions towards the rest of the staff, when he was not allowed to participate in our semi-weekly Hunger Games event, he threw a fit and abused a lot of the staff that night. (Not physically, but emotionally.) A week later, the Senior Staff voted to impeach him and that was that.

Now, this not only reminds me uncannily like my own situation, with a few details different, but it also kind of made me wonder why I cared, it was a game, nothing more than that, I only talked to the guy a few times on Skype and I almost liked the other staff more than I did him.

Two days ago Zan texted me saying it was her birthday, I of course wished her Happy Birthday and said we should chat it up online soon, (of course two days later we haven't, but hey we're teenagers.) So today we're texting like an old married couple (don't ask..) and chatting a little bit, and it felt good to be talking to an old friend.

My Hunger Games site has started growing and becoming a larger population and community, new staff is getting put up at our staff meeting on Saturday and new community members join all the time. ( http://thehungergamesrp.forumotion.com if anyone's interested.)

Now each of these three situations have made me feel a different emotion. Starting with the Owner who got demoted, I felt.. wrong, bad, like there should have been another solution, we weren't considering everything, we were hurting someone in a way they would remember forever because they had been involved in the community from the very start.

When I was texting with Zan.. I felt.. Happy, but scared. Happy because, I mean come on, it's Zan.., but scared because, I knew I was talking with the person I visualized with my past life here. I didn't want to re-open old wounds which is why I've been avoiding contact with a lot of my older friends here (with the exception of Gaz, who's my fellow admin.)

I feel pride in my Hunger Games site because of the work and effort everyone's putting in, but also scared that what I have there will turn into what happened here. Which I don't want to happen.

So what does this have to do with anything?

Well, a couple days ago I was shown a video by a guy on my server link is -> Here <-

And my instant reaction was, why the hell am I not seeing this more. And it's simple. Because Human nature dictates that we overlook sadness and replace it with a torrent of fake happy. It's what leads to depression, and frankly this is quite scary. This is my direct quote to what I said about this on my server.

Snolanda wrote:: I have too much to say and not enough time to say it, but **** it. I'm going to say it anyways because this is important.

Things of this caliber are often overlooked by our insubstantial society. There is too much pain like this in the world, not enough realization of what this means. There are stories like this everyday, children die every day because of this. It is, as it arguably should be, our natural reaction to ignore it and pass by as if we hadn't seen it in the first place. A was in Boston yesterday driving my friend to PAX, and we're stopped at an intersection in the city, there's a homeless man on the side of the road holding a sign that said he had been laid off from his job and desperately needed any amount of money to help him establish a foundation of which to work off.

The car next to us contained a father a wife and two middle school aged children. It was clearly heard through the open window the father say "Don't make eye contact with him." and they rolled up their windows. This leads me to my point. Who are we to deny someone the possibility of a happy end because we don't; like what they look like/ appear to do/ have the time for them. There were 50K views on that video, if every single viewer donated $1. I guarantee you there would be enough to send that little girl on the vacation of her dreams.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the human psyche, but I would bet the contents of my wallet that a good 50% of people didn't donate because they thought either someone else would cover them, stupid. Or they didn't just have the time for it, stupid.

Of course it's excusable if someone's too young, or legitimately doesn't have the cash to spare. But there are still things you can do to raise awareness. As a required course of the freshman year of my high school students are required to pick a cause to raise awareness for and give out of school presentations to the community. When I did my project I raised $700 for the Earthquake relief funds in Haiti.

The point being you're never too young or unable to do anything.

Some people may think 'Well it's easy for you to SAY those things. To which I say, your damn right it's easy to say. I personally would like part of my donations to go to this. I donated to the website, but if the website wants to donate to this then by all means count me as a supporter.

There are 7 billion people on this planet. If people like these were to receive a single penny from all of them, they'd have 70 million dollars. Even the smallest amounts can help tremendously, so don't excuse yourself from that because someone else is going to cover you.

Source: http://eirinncraft.net/forum/m/3778993/viewthread/2742266-charity

After I typed that out and decided this is why we're human. We're human because of our urge and emotion to help people like this. Our idea of emotion is instantly overode into pity or the burning passion to do SOMETHING.

That's all I got to say, see y'all on the flipside
~Snow

Subject: Re: Why are we human? Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:59 pm

HEY, THERE. I SEE YOU STILL HAVEN'T MOVED THE DAMN POLAR BEAR'S HEAD!

Oh my god.

That poor little girl. D: I started sobbing. Katie, that's awful. Oh my gosh, I want to donate money so badly. For this poor, little girl. And then I saw the most recent video for that guy and I was, like, wait... so no more donations? Plus my mom told me that she didn't want to get scammed. Which probably relates back to what your original message was.

Subject: Re: Why are we human? Fri Apr 13, 2012 8:04 pm

Right!

Subject: Re: Why are we human? Sat Apr 14, 2012 6:39 am

Yesterday, I was walking through London with my mum and little brother. We were making our way back to Liverpool via the public transport system known as the underground. Now, I've been coming to London for years, and know about a lot about the homeless people in the city centre. Believe me, there are craploads, and not just the traditional scraggly men stereotypically defined as homeless people. In fact, when I last went down (at christmas, to spend time with family) I had the pleasure of meeting a girl who was only a couple years older than me. She was sixteen, and begging for money. SIXTEEN. After giving her a small sum of money (can't remember exactly how much) we got to talking. Turned out, she had ran away from home after her mum had married her third husband, whom she wasn't particularly fond of. She'd been living on the streets for three months, with nothing but a blanket, a small teddy she was given by her dad, and £150 she had stolen off her mother. I expressed my condolences towards her and her situation, then explained that I had to catch my train, which would be leaving in ten minutes. She then said something that shocked me a little inside. Hardly ANYBODY helps the people on the street, and even fewer stop to talk to them. She thanked me, saying that I had made her day. And then we parted ways, never to meet again.
I was in London again, yesterday with my mum and brother. Have I said that already? I'm not sure. Anyway we were on the underground, walking through London Bridge Tube station, when I saw a homeless guy tucked away underneath one of the eaves. My mum (who was walking in front of me, due to the fact that I had been given all of the various bags to carry. Anyway, being partially blind, I have ridiculously good hearing. In front of me, I heard my mum say to Tom,
"Don't go near him, and don't make eye contact." This pissed me off a bit, so I purposefully went out of my way to walk over to the man, and say hello. Now, over the times I've been in London, I've learned to not give money to homeless people, because they may spend it on things other than food, such as drugs or alcohol. Instead, I gave the man a clean pair of socks from my bag, and my pack of Haribo Starmix. I smiled at him, wished him a happy Easter, and told him to look after the socks (jokingly). Whilst all he could stutter out was "thank you," I could sort of tell by the look on his face that he was shocked, and pleased.
If we each did something small like this, think of how many lives we could improve. Too many people go through life without even acknowledging the existence of people with little. If we all just started to take notice of both the good and the bad in our world, then maybe we could get closer to the utopia that we all desire.
Ignorance doesn't always equal bliss.

-- Ninja;

» The human inside all of us... (WICKIEEEEEEEE)
» Let's play a game of human ipod! (open)
» HUMAN SACRIFICE ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE [Sniggle]