The Rich and the Poor

Today I read an online article entitled "A Stone in Your Heart." It is about the gap between the rich and the poor in Vietnam, a developing country in Southeast Asia. The writer describes the contrasts in shopping patterns and behaviors of the rich versus those of the poor during the last few days before "Tet," the traditional New Year celebration in Vietnam.

If you watch those behaviors, and find the gap between the rich and the poor an unacceptable social injustice, then the stone in your heart is small and manageable. That means you still have a human heart, basically made of flesh and blood. If, on the other hand, growing callous and indifferent to others' sufferings, you cannot feel indignant against the widening rich vs. poor gap, your heart is probably growing into a big rock. In that case you must be alarmed, for you are no longer a human.

As I wrote once, every one of us is part of the whole. We all want to be happy and enjoy the way each of us define happiness in life. Yet, it seems peace and happiness cannot be fulfilled once there are still worries, stress, hunger, disasters, epidemics, wars and terrorism, etc. It is obvious that my own safety depends on yours, and my enjoyment cannot be complete without you and others around me having a share in it. After all, why should I make a lot more money than you, when in the end death is the greatest leveler to everybody? I need you as much as you need me. We depend on one another. A trash collector has an important role to play in society, just as the president of a superpower. Imagine the Obamas living in a trashed-filled Washington, D.C. Could they?

Let's share, show respect, and be humble. Every one on earth is but a small grain on the beach, or an earthworm whose usefulness awaits some more discovery besides those already made by Charles Darwin.