Sunday, November 27, 2005
how do you count 80,000 lives?
in addition to my high school reunion, i also saw the movie adaptation of rent this past weekend, which musically ponders the question of how we measure each year of our lives.
a year contains "525,600 minutes," each one full of unlimited potential and opportunity. 5 million minutes since high school. what a disconcerting way to think about about things. i wonder how many of those minutes have been memorable? how do we make each moment count without having to count every minute?
and then i hear on the radio that the death toll from the earthquake in pakistan is expected to rise past 80,000 people ... another number that at first seems too utterly immense to comprehend, but that quickly becomes painfully real once we stop to pay attention.
a year contains "525,600 minutes," each one full of unlimited potential and opportunity. 5 million minutes since high school. what a disconcerting way to think about about things. i wonder how many of those minutes have been memorable? how do we make each moment count without having to count every minute?
and then i hear on the radio that the death toll from the earthquake in pakistan is expected to rise past 80,000 people ... another number that at first seems too utterly immense to comprehend, but that quickly becomes painfully real once we stop to pay attention.
