Marrying George Clooney

a friend of mine calls me today and starts going on and on about how awful she feels about Haiti, but trust me, not for the obvious reasons, but truthfully, honestly, because she has a shitload of problems herself and while her heart is completely and utterly ripped in tiny little kleenex pieces over the devastation, she too is having a hard time, she lost her job, she’s running out of money, and oh my god she says i know i know i will never live in poverty or be lying in rubble, and she continues on this self reflecting journey when i finally say, whoa whoa… first of all your struggles and problems and pain and suffering is your stuff, that you deal with, Haiti is horrific, what’s going on there is horrifying… but… why compare, why go there, and she says, well i know they don’t have water and food so i should be grateful. i should be grateful. News bulletin: WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL NO MATTER WHAT. period. One shouldn’t have to face poverty straight on continuously to have a genuine epiphany about brotherhood and sisterhood and global humanity and the need to take better care of each other and ourselves
why oh why do we feel this need to diminish our struggles and pains?
The blatant truth is that I will never have that particular struggle and suffering that the folks in Haiti have, but i can identify with their fears and doubts and worries and sorrows because human beings have the same exact wiring system. we don’t often think we do, but we do. it’s just that it’s all relative.
a short story. many years ago a friend of mine lost her husband to a brain aneurism, one day he was alive and well and they were living this great sexy love story, and yes, with everyday difficulties like all of us, and the next  minute, he was dead, being cremated. She lost her best friend of 12 years. a few days after his death, a group of women showed up to pay respects, bring food, chat, and there was a young (young? maybe she was 21, 22) girl who was rather shy and kept to herself, and my friend who had just lost her husband approached her, seeing that she was sad, and she asked her what was wrong, The young girl feeling a bit uncomfortable said “my boyfriend broke up with me,” and then started to say something like, but you just lost your husband…he died…I’m so so sorry, your loss is so much bigger, and my friend, my wonderful compassionate enlightened friend looked this young girl in the face and said, “it’s all relative. pain is pain. It’s all relative.”
so, maybe that’s the answer. instead of always berating ourselves for not quite hitting the pain ball out of the park, maybe we oughta stop, and realize that deep down we’re all exactly the same. sorrow is sorrow, pain is pain. loss is loss. love is love. and it is the glue that binds us. it’s the common human thread that makes us humble and caring and knowing, in every fiber in our being, that we are never — nor should we be — alone.