In praise of human decency...

Yesterday, I saw the front page of the NY Post. It was the photo of a man who had been pushed onto the subway tracks who was killed by an oncoming train. In the photo, he is clinging desperately to the side of the tracks as the train barrels down on him. The headline read, "This man pushed onto tracks is DOOMED!" I looked at that  photo and wept. First of all, I wept for the horrific way the poor man died. He had argued with a stranger who then simply pushed him to his certain death. Sickening. But mostly I wept because we live in a society that will stop to take a photo such as that and not try to help the man and, worse, publish his last terrifying moments on the cover of a newspaper. What have we come to?

Today at work, there was an incident between two co-workers. One of them touched a sandwich on a tray as she was trying to reach a different sandwich. The other grabbed her by the arm and shouted "NO NO NO NO!" at her as if she was a child. Yes, if you touch food on a common plate you should always take what you touch but how is it that one grown adult woman so easily grabbed and shamed another grown adult woman. When they brought their confrontation to me the "grabber" proceeded to scream and yell and call her co-worker a liar multiple times. Where is the basic decent behavior there?

Of course, the latter is not even close to the horror of the previous example but I think they are both indicative of a greater problem. People are so intent on their own egos and issues that they don't think twice before they harm, physically or emotionally, another human being. And they can make their arguments so convincing.

Yesterday I wrote about my lack of motivation and general feeling like I just don't give a damn. That feeling comes and goes. But what doesn't change in me is the basic human decency my parents instilled in me. WE are all family. It's time we started treating each other like it.