The Insignificant and the Important

Today I got a sub from Subway for lunch. It was a Veggie Delite, (or some other intriguing and optimistic title involving vegetables), and it was a pretty tasty bargain at $3.14. When the teenager making the sub asked what I would like on it, I basically went down the line, eyeing each little stainless steel bin of toppings, and pointing out what I wanted, "I'll take some fresh spinach, white American cheese, lettuce, tomato, ummmm...yeah, black olives, some sweet peppers, but just a few," etc. etc. It was uneventful and uncomplicated, although I did have to request that the young man NOT select the pale orange tomato slices with the hard yellow cores in their centers, but instead, I specifically pointed to the more appetizing pinkish-red slices in a different corner of the tomato container. (I wonder how those anemic tomato ends wind up in the tomato container in the first place - certainly whoever was slicing those realized they were the "undesirables," but threw them in anyway). Thankfully, he didn't seem to mind my being particular about the tomatoes, and I left the shop and walked to my car, whereupon I received a call from a friend who had coincidentally just bought himself a sub at a Blimpie's sub shop.

My friend was a little annoyed, but mostly in wonder that his own sub order seemed overly complicated, and it presented one of life's unanswerable (if not monumentally important) questions: If I say I want everything EXCEPT green peppers on my sub, why must I then go on to tell the teenage sub-maker each item that I DO want on my sub? Shouldn't saying "everything EXCEPT green peppers" mean that he is to put EVERYTHING on the sub EXCEPT green peppers and not waste his, nor my, time in discussing it further? Strangely, the young man seemed to automatically assume my friend wanted lettuce, tomato, and onion, but his assumptions stopped there, and for each subsequent topping, he either asked my friend, "Do you want such-and-such?" Or, as the employee mysteriously passed over the pickle bin, my friend had to ask, "Could I get some pickles on that?" My friend's original request seemed simple, direct and clear, but evidently, the sub-maker either (a) did not listen to his customer's request, or (b) did not understand the words "everything EXCEPT green peppers." This would be somewhat similar to a recent misunderstanding I encountered at a McDonald's drive-thru, when I ordered two hamburgers with ketchup and pickle ONLY, and when I got home, I opened up two hamburgers that were topped with MUSTARD ONLY. In this case, the drive-thru employee seemingly did not understand the word ONLY in the context in which it was used, though it seemed clear at the time. If one says, "I ONLY want ketchup and pickles," I cannot for the life of me fathom how that translates in the fast food twilight zone as "Mustard only."

All of this to say that sometimes, what we think is a simple request ends up being a more complicated and tedious endeavor, which takes 4 minutes of our time to clarify, rather than the 60 seconds it should have taken for the requestee to process it mentally and then carry out the task. But I suppose such is the nature of life in the 21st century: fast food is not fast enough; convenient is still inconvenient; instant is a misnomer. My friend and I have discussed this on numerous occasions, while also admitting how ridiculous it is that we find such scenarious to be irritating, in the whole scheme of life, in our brief blip on this planet.

I will qualify my use of the word "ridiculous" when I relate a conversation I had just yesterday evening with a telemarketer named Michele from a charitable organization, with whom I ended up having a significant moment, a sharing of the true human experience. The above stories become ridiculous when I consider what she related to me - that 27,000 children die every day from starvation or preventable disease. 27,000. My mind cannot fathom such a number of innocents suffering and then leaving this earth on a daily basis, and the broken hearts left behind. But my heart can barely imagine the mourning of one mother, whose two year-old gazes up at her with desperate eyes, who has not eaten in who-knows-how-many days, and who cries pitifully in his hunger while his wide, tear-filled eyes look pleadingly at her. Yet she can do nothing but watch this tiny life fade from hers, never to feel those frail arms about her neck again, never to kiss that most tender and beautiful cheek, never to witness the smile that lights that angelic face, and her own, when contemplating a tiny pleasure that only a child can appreciate. It is unthinkable that this happens 27,000 times a day and yet could be prevented.

What binds us together as people, as part of the human race? What is really important? Is it not caring for others, making a difference where the difference means life or death? Is this not vastly more important and significant than our own comfort, our own minor irritations? I was humbled when Michele and I spoke of the immensity of suffering around the world, and my own personal suffering became insignificant. I know that I am not the first person to be moved by such statistics, or by a story or a magazine article or a television special. I know that while my own trials are relative, some are very real to me, and I know that it is virtually impossible to be impacted on a daily basis by such stories. But I do hope that while I am moved, I will keep moving. I want to remember what Michele and I talked about. And maybe by giving out of my excess, or learning more about the world, or reminding myself of this conversation, I will somehow make a difference in the world. Maybe the insignificant will be proven so, and the important will be made known, at least in my own life. Maybe.


For a visual to go with this post, go to google images and search for "starving child". The photographs will break your heart, as they should. They broke mine...