If that will make you feel better, I rarely throw away my food (except if it is junk, then I don’t care but I am very much mad at myself when I have to throw away rotten food or one whose date has expired) but throwing away food is not that serious.

Why I am saying that is because the food that someone is throwing away was already bought, that is, businesses benefited from your money which puts them in a better position of expanding themselves in Africa and elsewhere. As long as one keeps buying food, businesses don’t care what he or she is doing with it – that is – whether they eat it, give it to their pet or throw it away.

I know that you were actually discussing how much such a person could be concerned about places where food is scant though, and I definitely agree with you on that.

In other words, the result is paradoxical. The Dark Ages of the New Time both exist and don’t exist. It depends on what side of the coin you are looking and also from what angle you are looking at a particular side of the coin.

I fear that we are slowly but steadily moving to the Dark Ages again. It seems to me our overindulging society is so busy and yet so comfortable, amused and entertained, that it’s close to impossible to care. It’s difficult to imagine extreme poverty and hunger while you’re throwing away food daily, supersizing portions, ordering food on the phone and texting away the money that could feed a village in Chad for a month.

Also, media is big on entertaining us, making us laughing our heads off. Well, the psychological technique is called Reciprocal inhibition and it poses that we cannot feel two opposite emotions at the same time. Naturally then, if you’re amused/laughing/(hardly happy) it would be impossible to feel concern/sadness, etc.

I don’t buy the time restriction argument. There seems to be plenty of time to discuss trivial local issues and the contestants in reality shows. Well, of course, we only care what happens in our own backyard. And gradually, people have been desensitized to the interconnectedness between countries in every part of the world, especially in this globalized world, as you said.

The media, I think, is right on the money to assume some people find ‘Hello’ too long. Well, it is true for a lot of the viewers. People don’t want to feel intimidated, uncomfortable or made feel stupid and while we are trying to sell this ‘feel good’ media programming, we avoid any info that may depreciate the ‘feeling good’ department. And this is no longer just valuing simplicity (I am all for it myself), but this is borderline idiotic.

Oh, you got me now and I’ve reveled one of my biggest fears … The Dark Ages of the New Time.

1. Time restriction. It takes them more time to write/talk about it.
2. Simplicity. Unfortunately, I observe that most of the mainstream media assume that people would find “Hello!” too long and hard to understand than just “Hi!”, if you know what I mean.

A third reason, though a very unlikely one, could be that they assume that people already know about it and don’t need to read about, or listen to, it anymore. In other words, they don’t think it is as important to mention it as I do.

I completely share your ideas and hopes for positive changes.

You are absolutely right – way too many people have blindly adopted the goal of annihilating the Axis of Evil, without knowing what that implies or who is involved. The lack of knowledge on both sides is frightening. Some large numbers of the Iranian people at least have the legitimate excuse of living in severe poverty, lack of education, propaganda, etc. What excuses do we have?!

Dima, “those things” (easier said than done) is technically everything in life. It is just that, in my opinion, talking about an issue puts the beginning of positive changes. Besides that, my other concern is the lack of knowledge about the situation in Iran that a lot of people have. After 4 years of listening to “Axis of Evil” (Iran, Iraq and North Korea), my observation is that some people stopped discerning people from government and government from kind of government (level of democracy, structure of government, politicians’ reputation both within the country and internationally).

Don’t get me wrong! The book that you gave me said it more than once that the majority of the Iranians live in poverty, in small towns and villages where they have few opportunities to develop as persons other than listening to the local clergyman. Addressing this issue is not just easier said than done but it is also next to impossible which, however, still makes it attainable.

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