In Continuum.

The Free Hug Campaign

I came across the free hug campaign by chance.And speaking of inspiration,this is the real deal.This sort of social movements dont come along very often,and here it is right in front of us for the world to see,the meaning and philosophy behiind it's simplicity.Because really,with a cardboard and seven letters printed on it,can mean a whole lot more than just the embrace of two strangers.So much,so much more.

Picture yourself on the streets one day.Minding your own business,twisting your body in such a way you glide through the crowd like an eel,not caring a thing about everybody around you,seeing them merely as obstacles on the street,like a rock in your path,things you need to get around to get to your desination with music blasting in your ears.

Then a guy appears in the middle of the street where people diverted.He has a big cardboard in his hand,and on it read "Free Hugs".How would you react to this man?Are you going to look at him and think he is crazy?Are you going to take a picture and walk away?Are you going to laugh at his stupidity?Or are you going to go to him and give him a hug?Because really,it tells a lot about you,how you would react to this strange man carrying a board that says that he is giving free hugs to strangers.Nobody has ever done something like that before,nobody ever bothered.Which makes his actions even more awe inspiring.

I read in an article in Today,and it was about a trip a journalist took to Paris to meet a friend of his over there.Because of a personal matter,his friend wasnt able to fetch him from the airport,so he had a driver carry a card with his name on it,to pick him up at the arrival hall instead.When the journalist arrived,he signalled to him that he was the personal he was looking for,as the driver was busy talking on the phone with somebody in French.He kept on talking all the way to his car,and started the engine.Meanwhile,the journalist sat at the back of the car,wondering just what the hell the driver was talking about.As he did so,he took out his iPod and started listening to some music.The driver kept talking on the phone while driving,and as he did all of that,stole quick glimpses at the flatscreen monitor mounted on his dashboard,which was showing a movie back then.The journalist on the other hand,was busy on his laptop,finishing up the latest column which was due in a couple of days time.

Then it struck him,right there at the back of the car.

Technology was bringing everybody further and further away from one another.Inside that car,five different processes were occuring at the same time,drawing the two people away from each other.The car driven by the driver,the phone conversation,the movie on the monitor,the article on the laptop,the music on the iPod.As much as people believe that technology brings people closer from around the world,i think it achieves it on a very superficial,skin-deep level.It brings the people closer sure,but when you examine the closeness of people,it merely creates a illusion of contact.In actual fact,we are further than we've ever been in centuries.

People are enclosing themselves in cocoons nowadays,even me.We are putting ourselves within this imaginary bubble of safety,locking ourselves from the outside world because where we are feels good,and it feels comfortable.So comfortable that we actually start to feel lethargic,that we forget how good it felt to be with somebody,to be close to somebody,and to have a real good conversation over a cup of coffee.Sure,MSN is able to have to people from opposite ends of the globe to talk to each other almost instantaneously.I remember talking to a girl all the way in Argentina once,and even through a webcam.But the truth is,i never felt in any way,emotionally attached to that person.I felt her talking,but it was merely the mouth moving,or the fingers typing.Humans can never survive upon a relationship,solely based on conversations and never that physical touch of things.

We hear but we dont listen.We look but we dont see.That's the problem with us nowadays.That is exactly why this river between each of us are growing wider and wider everyday.You think that by talking to each other over MSN is going to bring the both of you closer to one another?You got it wrong,because i know though i am talking to my beloved online as i type,i still have this raging urge to get out of my door,take a taxi and rush to her place to meet her.Because really,nothing beats a hug and a kiss,a warm embrace followed by a smile on her face.Nothing beats that,not evena seven hour conversation via the internet.All i need is that one minute with her face to face,it overcomes everything else in this world.

We are all fighting distances arent we?I feel so distant from people nowadays.You see,if you are at a bookstore and you decide to approach somebody,just to have a good afternoon conversation with him or her,people are probably going to stare at you wondering just when the hell you are going to scramble off,or that if you were recently released from the mental hospital,if you were released at all.The truth is,people are turning a cold shoulder on one another now,people are cursing and swearing,because nobody cares about each other,and everybody who does anything remotely polite or kind,is deemed crazy or mad.That's the truth,the cold hard one.Can you take it?Can you take it?

I remember seeing a Pulitzer winning picture a couple of years back.I think i mentioned it on my old blog a couple of times.It is the most powerful picture i have ever seen,and it remains as a painful reminder just how ignorant own current world is.

It was a picture taken by a...British journalist i believe.He was in Sudan i think,and he took a picture of a young Sudanese girl,literally crawling towards a Red Cross Ration Distribution Centre miles away,all skin and bones and with her head to the sandy ground.She was alive,and not dead.Her breath was slow and on the verge of death,and her head was between her knees in the picture,dying.The worst part of all:A vulture follows her close behind,just waiting for her to die so that it could devour the body.If i am not wrong,the journalist fell into a serious case of depression afterwards,despite winning the Pulitzer for the picture.

So why is the world going "Oh,let's get rid of poverty" when people are sitting at home,watching their televisions with a tub of ice cream in their arms,doing nothing about it?We see it everyday on Discovery Channel or National Geographic,seeing African kids dying from famines and diseases,and what the hell do we do about it?We spend more money on clothes,we spend more money on clubbing.We throw our cash down the drain because we cant give two cents to the aid of the children.When asked for donations,people grumble and then takes a pathetic fifty cents out of their pockets,calling themselves the generous bunch.

Where is the love in this world?Where is the love when the people in India needed our aid during the Tsunamis?Where was the love when the children in an orphanage of India needed our donations?Look,just look at those donors,giving pathetic amounts of money to the charity.Just look at them,and then being satisfied that they helped,that they bridged the distance between people.I remember taking out a fifty dollar note for the Tsunami aid.I remember my father shipping a whole cargo crate of food supplies to India.I remember giving a whole portion of my Indian currency to the orphanage.And do i think i have done my part in bridging the distance?Sad to say,no.And these people are raving about it!

We are swallowing too much of it,too much of our personal issues that people are exploding all over the place.My dearest,Door Girl,even Lao Da.Everybody is falling apart,everybody is burning up.Why do we swallow when we can spit.Why do we take it in when we can throw it out?We have too little contacts,too little love in this world worth mentioning now,because everything is bleak and nothing means anything,anymore.Faith is lost,and these is not trust.In a bulletproof vest and the windows all closed,people are shutting themselves inside,thinking that there is the safest place in the world.

But people forget,people neglect.People under-estimate the power of a simple hug,what it can mean to a person in the mend.People dont remember the simple joy of having somebody in your arms,when you are at your most vulnerable,when you are in need of someone to tell you that everything is going to be okay.And a simple hug encompasses all that,it has all of the best comforting words in the world saturated into one gesture of the human body.

So support the Free Hug campaign.Save the world.Save our world.

Give a free hug.

We all need one.