A futile maneuver

For the past bit, whenever I go to restaurants or coffee shops, I get this weird feeling when I look around. What I see is very run-of-the-mill: normal people eating, families with young children and grandparents, young couples smiling and enjoying each other's company. And I see myself, in a similar position, eating with my own family or friends (um... not the couple one, obviously). It's a strange notion, that I'm just sitting there, stuffing my face with this food, paid for by this money that, by some great miracle, seems to exist as my own property. It's a strange notion because beyond the restaurant walls, there's an entire world that is characterized by strife and tragedy. There are people out there who would count themselves lucky enough to eat three relatively substantial meals with less than the cost of my single meal, people out there who call pizza once a month a luxury, people out there caught in the midst of war, some of whom may even simply cease to exist before I can finish my meal. And, yet, despite all that, I sit there maneuvering the airplane into my mouth so I can satiate some inane physiological desire. Not just me, not just this particular establishment, but this scene multiplied by every similar iteration on the planet. It is as if we all share in a communal idle, enacting this collective apathy to the world just outside the front doors that seal us in our comfortable seclusion, to a world that, in fact, desperately needs our collective effort to pull it through to tomorrow. And yet, we sit and wait for our meals like ignorant children, unwilling to accept the harsh realities that permeate the lives of so many of our fellow compatriots. And, of course, in my oh-so-typical style, I just sit there like the best of them and, while my mind futilely flashes these impressions to me, I lack the spine to follow those things my heart seems to exclaim with all its might. Like a good little boy, I eat my fucking noodles, with a tinge of guilt ... but that's for damn sure not gonna help anyone. So say we all!