I can't sleep because of the effect three caffeine pills and three diet Cokes have on my heart and my mind, but mostly because of an edit of the Oxford Amnesty Lectures on human rights, which I have been reading as a bedtime story.
Kosovo, Serbia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, the list goes on.
Cashmere sweaters that fall off your shoulder, apartment viewings in Shoreditch, whether you should reply to that message he sent you, red wine and manchego cheese all seem so trivial, so grotesque compared to what might be happening elsewhere. How can I sit here, daydreaming about sneakers and love and perfect apartments for under 180 pounds a week when somewhere else someone is living a nightmare?
I urge myself and everyone to do something. Use your gift of writing, drawing, photography, speech and make it worthwhile. Travel to Kosovo, Serbia, Yugoslavia, Romania, help help help help. Write articles, film documentaries, go where it is happening now.
That is what I'm planning on doing. I might not become the next Hemingway or Bukowski, but reporting, photography, pictures in motion can make some kind of difference.
I learnt a word in German not too long ago.
Weltschmerz - world-weariness. Like the Danish word hygge, it has no precise translation, but it can be described as a feeling of sadness, a physical pain, a sadness for the world.
As much as I'd like to forget all of this, I can't, it keeps on plaguing my mind too persistently.
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