The Apathetic Shoe Salesman

The Duff keeps hearing things about the young people nowadays not caring about the world beyong their own. The do not participate in the political system, and they do not cherish what they have, having been living in a world relatively secure and untouched by the perils of the reality.

Apathy develops in people too much into their comfort zones. Without a challenge to their established realities, it is hard for them to imagine a life otherwise. How can they be bothered with affairs of the outside world?The Duff was thinking, what with the terrible tragedy of the tsunamies in the region, was all the help really sincere in all sense of the word? Were they really helping out to make the life of strangers better? Or were they just doing it for the credit, the recognition, the social pull of such an event and its 'rewards'? Or is The Duff just too skeptical? The appearances of roller blades and snowboards amongst the donations just didn't appease The Duff's cynical side at all, not one bit.

What about those who continued to sell vouchers, or collect donations on behalf of other charities? Did their 'business' decrease due to a shift in the tide of sympathy? What about the charity shows on television? Were their collections less, now that people have blown their tax-write-offs on tsunami donations already?

The Duff supposes that for us, the favoured in the eyes of the world, to truly appreciate the goodness that can be done, we have to really see and experience the tragedies. To walk among the fields of the dead, and to console the inconsolable. To step into another's shoes, as wretched as those shoes may be, without soles or spiked with thorns, those unbearable shoes. Simply giving out monies, and goods, as kind and well intentioned, cannot be compared with those who went over to the disaster areas, and to get into the thick of things.

The Duff salutes them. They are heroes. They are The Truth.