Memento mori

I treated myself to a late breakfast this morning at one of the well known British coffee chains.

As I put down my newspaper down next to my food, I was rather disturbed that I lived a life of such comfort compared to the desperately poor people shown on the front-page of The Times.

Was it right to sit comfortably while watching the suffering of others?

It brought to mind "Regarding the Pain of Others" Susan Sontag's last book in which she says:

Images, have been reproached for being a way of watching suffering at a distance, as if there were some other way of watching. There is nothing wrong, with standing back and thinking.

Not knowing what I could personally do, I gave a donation to the Haiti disaster appeal. If you can afford it - maybe you can too?