photo by me

I’m currently taking a course in grad school that is an introduction to multimedia design. It’s not what most people envision though. It’s a rhetorical study of visual communications. Why are certain images used? What do they evoke when they are used? What kind of audience response is desired when a specific image is used?

We are tying this in to the concept of peace. How is peace portrayed in visual communications and do images have the same effects on everyone?

Last night I was reading about peace and the visual impact of images. Simon sends me an e-mail about the Canadian elections. We start talking about the new Prime Minister, Harper, and how he has some ultra-conservatives on his team. We talk about what that could mean for Canada.

Because of the books I had been reading just prior to that, my thoughts are on the world at large and how one country’s elections can have an impact on the world at large. And I say this to him:

I’ve been reading the books on peace tonight for my class. I think my head is in that place where I want to believe in the goodness of people and our desire to do right by others all over the world.

Pollyanna-ish, I know.

I think that your election just reminds me that it’s a struggle to have leaders who aren’t all about money or power or control. And is that even possible? Isn’t the whole meaning of being a leader about power and control?

I don’t know.

And then I start thinking about the images that flicker by nightly on the news. We see images of genocide in Darfur. We see killings in the Congo. We see people suffering from natural disasters in Pakistan, Nicaragua, and Indonesia. We see people being stoned, shot, and hung.

And my heart hurts. I feel like there is nothing I can do – it’s just too much.

But those people who have power, they can do so much more. And do they? Do they care about the woman in the Sudan who is hungry and giving everything she has to her child so that he can grow up to fight a battle that he doesn’t need to fight? Do they care about the child in Afghanistan who sees the surplus holdings of the warlords and knows that is the only way to survive?

Do they care?

Do we care?

Or is it all just a little too much? Do we bury our heads in the sand and hope that tomorrow will be a better day?

And if we can make a difference, just by speaking out, helping out when we can, will we? Can we?

I want to believe that I’m a good person and that I would do what I can to make a difference in the lives of others. Even if it is that person one state over who is in despair and tired and lonely and hungry and just needs to know someone cares.

I do. I care.

And if I can do more, I will.

That’s my promise for this new year.