"Look, I'm pouring ice cold water on my body for charity." "Look, I'm wasting perfectly good water." "Look, I'm doing what my friends are doing... For charity!"
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is EVERYWHERE! This is the third week it's been in trending, and still goin' pretty strong, by the looks of it. Others pouring ice cold water all over themselves to raise awareness for ALS. While others say "psh, I'm not going to waste water. I'll just donate." While the other others are saying "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS WE COULD FEED A WHOLE THIRD WORLD COUNTRY WITH THAT WATER." Not even noticing that you can't eat water. Anywho, along with all of this are other people's spins on why we should or shouldn't be partaking in this challenge that has swept the nation.
Last night, I was scrolling through Facebook while not doing my mountains of homework I have. While educating myself on what some of my sort-of-acquaintances are doing with their lives, one of my friends posted a picture of someone doing the Ice Bucket Challenge. The picture read "Annual deaths from ALS every year: 5,600. Annual deaths from having no access to clean water: 3,400,000." Huge, right? I know. Makes you feel kind of weird about it, right? I know.
But.
I know, always a but.
Here's my thing. Yes, maybe a different way of raising awareness could be useful. Yes, this is momentary torture for a simple video. Yes, it's a waste of water. Clean water, at that. But this disease. This disease is so silent, I think it deserve a little scream-from-the-rooftops kind of attention. Because that number is so low and that's kind of what's the scary part of it. Because the reason it's "so low" (because, actually any number of deaths is huge and should speak to us greatly, but that's for another post) is because not many are diagnosed with it. Which means we know next to nothing about it. And know even less about how to cure it.
This is the 21st century. The generation that keeps moving forward with technology. Yet we don't know what causes ALS, how to cure it, anything. Scary, right? Like actually so frightening. Until this year, few people knew about this. This disease that kills so slowly. Like, as in you start losing control of you whole body, but really slowly. Until you can't breath.
So, absolutely, I want to help people get clean water. I want to solve world hunger and I want to help stop injustice and I want to spread love I want equality for all I want to help cure cancer I want to stop all of the wild fires that happen in the west I want to stop war I want to help educate I want to slow down climate change... On and on. I do. I really do. And, it just so happens, I want to heal spread awareness for this disease that, until now, has had zero screen time. It's time to spread awareness, raise money, and try to find out what this disease is. Because it's the 21st century and having a disease you can't treat is frightening. It's time to figure this thing out.
Thanks,
Mary Taylor
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is EVERYWHERE! This is the third week it's been in trending, and still goin' pretty strong, by the looks of it. Others pouring ice cold water all over themselves to raise awareness for ALS. While others say "psh, I'm not going to waste water. I'll just donate." While the other others are saying "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS WE COULD FEED A WHOLE THIRD WORLD COUNTRY WITH THAT WATER." Not even noticing that you can't eat water. Anywho, along with all of this are other people's spins on why we should or shouldn't be partaking in this challenge that has swept the nation.
Last night, I was scrolling through Facebook while not doing my mountains of homework I have. While educating myself on what some of my sort-of-acquaintances are doing with their lives, one of my friends posted a picture of someone doing the Ice Bucket Challenge. The picture read "Annual deaths from ALS every year: 5,600. Annual deaths from having no access to clean water: 3,400,000." Huge, right? I know. Makes you feel kind of weird about it, right? I know.
But.
I know, always a but.
Here's my thing. Yes, maybe a different way of raising awareness could be useful. Yes, this is momentary torture for a simple video. Yes, it's a waste of water. Clean water, at that. But this disease. This disease is so silent, I think it deserve a little scream-from-the-rooftops kind of attention. Because that number is so low and that's kind of what's the scary part of it. Because the reason it's "so low" (because, actually any number of deaths is huge and should speak to us greatly, but that's for another post) is because not many are diagnosed with it. Which means we know next to nothing about it. And know even less about how to cure it.
This is the 21st century. The generation that keeps moving forward with technology. Yet we don't know what causes ALS, how to cure it, anything. Scary, right? Like actually so frightening. Until this year, few people knew about this. This disease that kills so slowly. Like, as in you start losing control of you whole body, but really slowly. Until you can't breath.
So, absolutely, I want to help people get clean water. I want to solve world hunger and I want to help stop injustice and I want to spread love I want equality for all I want to help cure cancer I want to stop all of the wild fires that happen in the west I want to stop war I want to help educate I want to slow down climate change... On and on. I do. I really do. And, it just so happens, I want to heal spread awareness for this disease that, until now, has had zero screen time. It's time to spread awareness, raise money, and try to find out what this disease is. Because it's the 21st century and having a disease you can't treat is frightening. It's time to figure this thing out.
Thanks,
Mary Taylor
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