Overexposed
Can you place this picture? (photo not taken by author)
On January 12th a 7.0 earthquake hit the small country of Haiti.
Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Mommy. Happy Birthday to you.
January 14th
Looking back at the electronic footprints I’ve left in the history of my browser from that day:
I joined Twitter.
I wrote a blogpost (not this one).
I applied to internships and wrote some cover letters.
I remember thinking that day that I knew something important had happened in Haiti, but I wasn’t really that concerned for some reason. After all, it’s only Haiti. Life over there is never ideal…what could have happened that made things that much worse from my perspective? I know it’s unfeeling and terrible of me. Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t care more. Why didn’t I just go to the NY Times and see what the headlines were?
My mom got the call from the charity foundation that our whole family is involved in, the Tzu Chi Foundation. This year, she is the new leader of the local branch, and as she has been going through the process of transitioning and learning from the past leader, this call suddenly added an entirely new level of stress. As she put it exasperatedly, “Does Buddha want me to learn everything I have to know in my first month of this job?” Although I know she has much more to worry about, I can also tell that this volunteer position gives her a new sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.
Now I realized something big was going on. My dad put on the news for the night but still couldn’t figure out what the estimated death toll was. I don’t think anyone knows yet. Nor will they ever really know. That’s the scary part.
January 15th
I finally went to the NY Times homepage, and I saw the real devastation.
I quickly Twittered the link.
January 18th
My parents and I watched a special on the original founder of the Tzu Chi Foundation, part of the material that my mom gets to watch as the new leader. The short movie displayed all of the good work that this foundation has done in the past 10 years.
Suddenly, images of a tsunami, flooding, people fleeing, chaos filled the screen. Those frames all had a tinge of familiarity, but I couldn’t place it. The caption dated it: Christmas Day 2004. Indian Ocean Tsunami.
That was a big one. I remember all of the awe-inspiring footage I saw in those weeks, but disturbingly, I couldn’t remember what we had called that incident. The Indian Ocean Tsunami? The Christmas Earthquake? Why couldn’t I remember what the headlines were? What is wrong with me? Have I seen so many of these types of headlines that I’ve forgotten what they were really all about?
That scared me.
I remember around the time of that tsunami thinking how horrendous this disaster was. And I also remember being amazed by all of the home video footage and photographs available. All of those images, in one form or another, made its way into my mind and nestled there. I thought that that would be something I would remember forever. But a mere 5 years later, I couldn’t even remember what year it had happened in, where in the world it had hit, or what to call it. I frantically googled up 2004 tsunami, and I realized it didn’t have a name…which made me feel somewhat better, but still I was amazed at how jaded I had become with all the natural disasters in the world.
I, along with many of the other people I know, am extremely fortunate to not have experienced firsthand a natural disaster of that proportion. We have always been in the privileged position of being able to help those in need in the small ways that we can. But year after year, it always seems that there has been another disaster that we collected donations for, followed closely on the news, or facebook statused. Maybe we’re all just a little overexposed and over-stimulated. It’s only natural to just forget and move on. But exposure should be good, shouldn’t it?
Maybe I shouldn’t remember these disasters too closely. They may just depress me with all of their weight. But I’ve decided that I may not want to remember the actual event, the consequences, and aftermath, but I do want to remember what I did to make that event special and stand out in my mind. This year, it will be that I helped my mom to organize all the fundraising for this Haiti earthquake. It will also be that I forgot…and remembered.
~Sam Go~
