One man's suffering is another man's glory

Does writing about the misfortunes of men help? Does glorifying these misfortunes not only for glorifying our own agendas? Do we not convert the raw agony of others into mythical and epic stories of our own creation? And above all, do we not put our names on the stories of others?

Human suffering is ugly. The world of people is just like Camus’ Oran, chaotic, corrupt, and generally horrendously unaesthetic. So, what is there to write about human suffering?

“Do you know, my child, right now, I am sitting on top of my wife and kids? I curse god, and I curse every force in the nature that made this horror possible” This was a man, sitting on top of a rubble, half of which was eaten by a peaceful looking sea. I stood there, speechless, nothing to say, nothing to do. I just left him, back to my humble job, distributing the food for the victims in the area.

I dug out this paragraph yesterday. It was among the many pages, I wrote, when I went to “help” the victims of the Gölcük earthquake. I realize now (thanks to Radu), it is cheesiness on ecstasy. It is exploitation of the victims, profiting from other people’s horrors and most importantly a masochistic therapy to deal with the personal responsibility in those events.

Wars, famines, inequalities, raped children, poverty... I almost constantly feel horrible. Yet, I realize now that I should expect no escape from this feeling. Writing about the suffering does not and should not take away the responsibility.