A picture is worth 1,000 words but I don't want to type that many- Henry Walther

Hope is lost easily. Looking around the world there is much to be saddened and frustrated by. But I will now label myself a hypocrite. I am sitting in my comfy chair typing on my laptop that I am embarrassed to reveal the price of in my house air conditioned to a crisp 71 degrees wearing molded plastic around my teeth because we have somehow deemed it socially acceptable to dump piles of money into fixing a few crooked teeth all while I think about at what university I want to spend 4 years and thousands of dollars attending.
Hypocrite.
How do I have the audacity to dare to comprehend the pain and struggle of thousands of people as I sit behind the glass wall that separates western civilization from all things that cause even an inkling of discomfort?
I pretend to know how to empathize with people's pain but I can't, nobody reading this can. Why? None of us have faced real struggle. Sure some hardships have entered our lives but we still have something that we call a "life". We have purpose. Meaning. Hope.
Now you may be thinking "why is he calling himself a hypocrite? He is not advocating to act differently than he does?" So why am I using that word? I am advocating for something I don't think I could do myself.
Syrian refuges like the ones pictured above are risking their life to escape their former lives and I advocate that country's and their people should take them in.
I couldn't take them in.
I wish I could say I'd open my door but I'm not sure I would or could. The narcissistic xenophobia that has been drilled into my head under the ruse of "american exceptionalism" has done it's damage. I want to love thy neighbor as thy self but artificial borders erected out of sand deprive billions of people from the mere opportunity of becoming my neighbor.

Back to the picture.

My favorite artist Kendrick Lamar (yes rappers can be artists) said this in his song Poetic Justice
                  "If a flower bloomed in a dark room can you trust it?"
I want to trust it. But I'm not sure if I can. The child refuges in the picture above come from a forsaken land but bring with them hope. Hope for what? Im not sure but flowers can sure as hell bloom in the most despondent of places. I'm not sure if I can turn the light on in the dark room.


I should of written this before I got all tired and nihilistic. Many apologizes.