Oblivious.
I tried an experiment the last two days. It wasn’t necessarily by choice (in fact, it was an assignment), but it reminded me of thoughts and questions I once had but never discussed. Someday perhaps I’ll try it again, and for longer. For now, however, the key point is that I get these thoughts down before I they disappear. (For brevity’s sake, this will be the third installment in The 20-minute Post Project.)
I won’t reveal the details of the experiment because I want to try it again sometime in the future–though any Bryan College student who has taken Abnormal Psychology with Dr. Rose will know exactly what I’m describing–but it required me to spend two days secretly struggling with an addictive problem that I could not share with anyone. It required me to hide in bathroom stalls in order to survive without being found out. It required me to withhold an area of my life from my girlfriend, with whom I have no secrets. In short, it was a very difficult assignment.
But who noticed that I was acting strangely? Would I have noticed my friends acting differently if I had been unaware of the assignment?
I struggle with the thought that I’m oblivious to those around me, but I think it’s true most of the time. To view the world from outside myself is nearly impossible. And of course, I tend to think my problems are huge and important. Combine these two factors and then multiply them by all the members of the human race (especially those in the West), and you have a world of people who think their problems are the world’s, but who are unwilling to share the load of a friend’s burden. Is that the kind of world we truly want?
A Heavy Word 