Over the week I read three picture books, "Freedom Summer" by Deborah Wiles about two friends, one white and one black, facing the challenges of racism, "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss about cruelty to the environment, and "Fox" by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks about the friendship between a maimed magpie and dog being tested to the limits by temptation. In all three of these books I found unfortunate truths for the reality of these "children's" books are quite evident. It hit me hardest though when I thought about how the situations of each book may have already passed the point of no return.
When I say point of no return I mean it as in things will never be erased. The pains and wrongdoings of people can never ever be erased. The cruelty done to African Americans will not suddenly vanish. The trees so brutally cut will never grow back, and as for Dog and Magpie in "Fox", the scars on their friendship won't ever go away. Even if things are mended, the "mending" can only fix the problem, not turn back time and make it non existing. What can people ever do to make things right again since the majority of things cannot become right but just less wrong. Of course, mistakes can help one learn and in "Fox", may actually strengthen the friendship between Magpie and Dog, being that Magpie decided to return to Dog knowing that she would have to face the guilt of her betraying him, but that does not mean that the trust between them will be as strong as it were before. The wounds will still be there and perhaps in moments may sting even more than when they were fresh.
Even more depressing is the fact that many are still doing such horrible things even if it already passed that point where things cannot be truly fixed. Emotions and hearts are not like machines where you can just fix it with some tools. We, as in all living things, are living but why can't this being of life be respected as it should always be? With the situations of the Truffula trees in "The Lorax", yes, the boy did get a seed, the last seed of all those trees but will the forests look the same as it were before it was all cut down? The animals will not come back and even if they did, their sufferings are irreversible. Don't people think before they act? Apparently we are the smartest of all animals, but I do not see how, for we cannot even see that doing something wrong cannot be undone and are the ones who have actually caused the greatest damage. Actually, we are the ones who are causing the greatest damage because people have not stopped. We are way passed the point of no return but do not even see that humans, as in ALL of us, are the cause for all these unnatural and horrendous issues that have blossomed into deaths, sufferings, and hearts that will forever have a long, jagged, and ugly crack. It seems that perhaps even the heart of our planet will one day be broken when it too can no longer stand such abuse.
While things cannot be erased, at least we can make the effort to have less things that cannot be so. Doing the pathetic action of making issues seem invisible is not one of those options. As for whether or not we are too far gone, yes we have gone too far but not so far gone that we cannot stop these actions if we really try.
Please feel free to comment.
Great post! I really liked your thought process. It is true how humans do all these awful things, and they really cannot be reversed, no matter how hard you try. I think at a certain point, when you stop thinking of others and only think about yourself is when these things start to happen. We stop thinking about the aftermath, and only think about ourselves and how we will benefit. that was how slavery started, how magpies friendship was broken, and how the onceler ruined the land. Humans need to start thinking about how their actions will affect people beyond themselves
ReplyDeleteExactly! I agree with both of you! Humans make many mistakes (be they tiny or enormous) that can never be reversed. We become corrupt, in a way, and only think about how things will benefit us. Once humans realize that they can get a reward from something, they usually don't stop and think about the ethics. It's like today in PE, when my team decided to trick our opponents into giving us all their dodgeballs so we could do the winning lay-up (Not very deep, but just as an example of how we do this every day). All we were thinking was "we can win and get 99s if we do this!" Afterwards, I realized that it wasn't a very ethical thing to do. If what happened to me could happen with all the huge problems in our world– people realizing their mistakes– these problems might not exist anymore! It's important to be conscious about what you're doing and what consequences your actions might have.
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