I Will Be Your Witness.

I Will Be Your Witness.

“There’s a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean?”

Susan Sarandon – Shall We Dance?

I haven’t written for a while and yes, that’s how the majority of my posts start. By now, you know the drill – I’ll write something about writing more consistently and I probably won’t. So let’s not play that game this time, even though, in some way we already have. What really matters is that in this moment, I am here in front of the keyboard with words in my heart that I need to get out. Shall we begin?

In a world of seven billion people, how much does any one life really mean?

These are some words that have been resonating with me for a while now as I continue on this journey of life. How much does one life really matter?

The other day, on twitter, I tweeted that “We are all chokoras. We just don’t realise it” – (for those outside of Kenya, a chokora is basically a street kid or as they would say in Dickensian times a vagabond, eking out life from the scraps of society.) but what did I mean by this?

Well let’s go back to the start

“There’s a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean?”

Street kids in any urban centre around the world are, for the most part considered nuisances. The phenomena of children living in the streets is not unique to Africa. In Kenya, there have been situations where they have been rounded up, but some how, end up back on the streets where we see them as criminals and the inconveniences that come up to our windows as we wait at traffic lights again, let me ask the question …

In a world of seven billion people, how much does any one life really mean?

When we hear about something that has happened to a street kid, we act shocked, when in reality we are complicit in their suffering because we don’t see them, well, until it’s cool to do so. You know, when it’s cool to feed them or act concerned. Most of the time, our lack of humanity has allowed us to lump them into a group of undesirables, when, in essence, they are kids. We have decided that there are some lives that don’t need a  witness, I mean, again I ask the question

In a world of seven billion people, how much does any one life really mean?

We ALL need a witness to their lives or what are we really doing here? Yes we have family, yes we have friends, colleagues, associates and all the rest, but who is really bearing a witness to your life? It runs deeper than just saying “I know my family loves me” or “I know my partner loves me” Are they bearing witness to you and your life? We can’t care about everyone and everything, but we can genuinely care for those around us. Not the fickle, transient concern where we ask “How you doing?” and then move on before getting an answer. Regardless of where we live, if we can’t feel enough to care for each other, then we are all chokoras, living without witnesses. In your own life and I wan’t you to think about this. Who are you saying the following to

“Your life will NOT go unnoticed because I will notice it”

“Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness”

Who’s looking at you and saying the same?

We have entered a dangerous phase where basic human values are seen as weaknesses. We are making it normal not to care, we are making it normal to lack empathy, we are making it normal to be unkind, we are making it normal to lack warmth, to lack love. We are making cruelty a currency, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our lives and in our hearts. Not caring is cool

I struggle with this, on a day to day basis because I want to see the good in people, I want to see the petals on the roses of humanity bloom and colour our lives with love and empathy. I truly want to to bear witness to the lives of the people I love, but it’s hard and becomes harder because we become that with which we associate the most. So in a cruel and sad way, each of us, with our lack of empathy and care reinforces the same negative traits that have society has normalised.

It’s okay to care

It’s okay share

It’s okay to feel

It’s okay to love

Though I doubt my little blog can change the world, I will always strive to do my little bit to bear witness to the lives of those I love. I’ll care about the “good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it”

Not because I have to, but because I want to.

In a world of seven billion people, I want you to know, that your life matters and I’ll be your witness.