Weird

Here, teams of ten young people are playing softball in a municipal park, occasionally grousing about calls made by the old man who is paid by the city to make them.

There, groups of parents and children are being massacred by bombs from the air, pleading for their lives while explosions paid for by a far-away country rock their land.

Here, a person rides their bike down a shady hill to a clear-blue lake and lays in the sun by the beach before diving in to cool off time and again.

There, people walk through the broiling sun for hours just to get a bucket of water that they carry back on their heads to barely hydrate the parched throats of their loves ones.

Here, somewhere, someone wearing an $800 dollar t-shirt and $3000 dollar sandals complains that the bathroom tiles they have ordered are one Pantone shade different than what they expected and so, therefore, are unacceptable and must be returned and the $150,000 dollars they paid for them be refunded.

There, somewhere, someone wearing rags huddles in a filthy alleyway with rubble strewn all around; they relieve themselves in a plastic bucket that’s stained with months of use; the lid is cracked and repaired with duct tape; that’s better than nothing at all.

Here, it’s an issue when you run out of cream for your coffee.

There, you’re lucky not to be killed when lining up for food distribution.

Here, there’s a library, a police station, a fire station, two grocery stores, five restaurants, a hospital and an urgent care facility, a public swimming pool with a recreation center, and three city parks all within two miles.

There, there is nothing but broken bricks and dust.

Here, all our problems are privileges; how lucky in the course of human history to have nothing worse than a leaky kitchen sink to worry about.

There, problems are problems: no food, no water, no safety at all.

Weird.