Empathy isn't enough, must react

Last friday, I was in the waiting line for my titre de séjour, in the Grenoble Préfecture. They just shifted the counters for foreigners, into the roofless yard in between the main entrance and the main building. The counters themselves have roof though. In fact, there are four of these counters built inside a really small air-conditioned office, so small that they actually won't allow people to wait inside the office, which on the other hand is impossible to do so also. One has to wait outside until one of the counters is available. 

It was raining heavily that day. With only two out of four counters were opened, long queue was inevitable. Luckily, the main entrance has big enough eaves for people to wait under it, instead of under the rain. And that is when the confusion came in. The queue under the eaves had some distance away from the office, which made the queue seeming like lining up for other counter. So some new arrivals might think that nobody was lining up for the foreigner's counters, and cut the line. Many would realize eventually, but there was these two teens cutting the line even though they knew where the real queue was. I wanted to ask them to queue up and almost did it. But it is embarrassing that it took me so long to react. I actually stood there doing nothing and hoping the others might stand up against them. 

Finally, a guy took action, asking them to line up. The teens said they only wanted to ask a simple question. The guy said, everybody else was lining up, and insisted that they must played by the rules also. But the teens just wouldn't listen. In the end, the good guy asked the queue to move to the front of the office to force those teens to line up like others and the strenght of the majority prevailed. Now the queue was under the rain but eventually it stopped not long afterwards. 

I felt so embarrassed for the fact that I didn't react. In this world we need more people like the good guy. But sadly, many people are like me, not reacting against injustice. 

And it seems to me that one of the ways that we don't come into this world knowing how to be a person is that we don't really know what to do about empathy. Like the weird thing about self-consciousness is that you become aware of the fact that, you can never fully feel someone else's pain and someone else can never fully feel your pain. ......The question is how do we get to a place where we can empathize with each other enough, to take care of each other enough, to get through this vale of tears.

- John Green, vlogbrothers - 

I think many of us have the empathy with us, just like I can totally understand how the people in long queue would feel if I cut the line. However, obviously we are not taking care of each other enough, and cannot even achieve a simple act, like standing up against those teens who cut the line.

Mesmerizing starry night

Many people I know live in cities. We put electrical lighting everywhere in the cities to be able to see clearer. Many of us living in cities will know, totally out of artificial lighting is rare. When you switch off the light to go to bed, there are always street lamps, the litttle LED from your charging phone, your internet router, etc.. 

Yes, night is dark, but not as dark as we always think. There is light from the stars and the moon. It might be hard to believe for those who always live in cities and have never been far away from the light pollution, that, with this light from stars and the moon, we are actually able to see very clearly at night. While in the nature, while the sky is clear to let enough star light and moon light to shine through, we should just let the pupils slowly dilate and adapt to the surroundings. Torchlight is pretty much useless in this situation, because it can only let you see wherever you point it at. 

As I live in a city also, so witness a starry night sky is quite rare for me, simply because you can't see the sky clearly in the cities with the light pollution. In my country, Malaysia, it is even rarer. In Malaysia, apart of the light pollution, there are clouds, since Malaysia is a tropical country where it rains frequently. So until now, the only constellation i can recognize is the Orion's Belt and Orion. Whenever I can see the Orion's Belt in Malaysia, I would consider the weather to be very clear already. 

Witnessing a trully starry night, it happened to me only twice (may be more but that's all I can remember). The first time is when I went for a 3-days hike in the national park of Ecrins. We were lost on the second day and couldn't get to lower altitude and flat land to set up our tent before sunset. We managed to continue going down the mountain to just below the snowline and found ourselves a slope which was not so steep. We failed to put up our tent also due the rocky surface where we couldn't anchor our tent. In the end we just sneaked into our sleeping bags and tried to get some rest. Nobody in the team managed to sleep that night. It was just too cold and we were in constant fear of rolling off the slope. So we basically were awake throughout the starry and windy cold night. The sky was beautiful as the stars slowly moving across the sky, though we were shivering like hell. That night was a long long night. We were all praying for the sun to come out sooner, and finally the sun rose, we never felt so alive before. 

The second time that I remember is during a stay with a family in Thar desert. This time I had a comfortable bed, sleeping outdoor, with the starry sky as blanket. 

It is an amazing experience to see a starry sky. It makes me think about many deep questions in life and in the universe. 

National Geographic, Best Travel Pictures of 2011 Named : 
Star Sprawl, by Ben Canales