The larger purpose of my books and articles are to help people. A portion of the sales proceeds of my books go to families in need. Not an organization but individual families that have a story or perhaps don't have a story but I hear about them and just send them a check. No fanfare just a chance to exhale for a moment. These aren't big money checks by ANY means but if it means you can treat yourself to a manicure or dinner out, then I feel successful.
On the news, for the past few days, has been the earthquake tragedy in Nepal. Over the past few years Nepal has suffered a great deal. The Sherpas are woefully underpaid for the amazing task they perform protecting the lives of climbers who can be untrained or have unreasonable demands. A Western guide can make $50K per climbing season while the most a Sherpa can hope for is about $5K. Then there was the tragedy last year with the avalanche that killed sixteen guides. Now this horrible earthquake claims more lives.
Given my mission and this story, you'd think I would donate book proceeds to the relief effort. It's not typically what I do, typically I try to find individuals or families to donate to, but when there is a larger tragedy like this, I do tend to donate the proceeds for that month to the relief efforts. I am ashamed to admit it, but this time it really didn't occur to me. I can't say I didn't know about it or feel compassion for the victims. It just really didn't cross my mind. Today I thought about it and besides feeling bad, which really doesn't help anyone, I wondered if I wasn't just in disaster overload. Am I just tuning out all the bad news in the world? It was just so shocking to me, someone who wants to help people, get dirty, get involved and yet I hear the news about Nepal and go to the kitchen for a diet Pepsi? It's not my intention to make this a self-flagellation session, but I confess it because I wonder if others have the same experience. The larger question for me is whether or not I, myself and we as a country or world are just overwhelmed with all the tragedy and at some point, perhaps only for self-preservation, are tuning out the world's troubles for our own more immediate needs simply for some amount of control or sense of control. Certainly, it's much easier to do something about the concerns of our own lives than it is to take on the troubles on such a large scale.
When we take time to consider how we might help in a situation like Nepal or perhaps the Germanwings disaster, we think, "Well, what could I possibly do?" I constantly think that. Is the few dollars I make from book sales really going to make any difference? Probably not. But then again, and this might be hubris, what if someone had taken a bit of time with that Germanwings pilot? What if my $20 or $30 in book sales means that a family in Nepal can buy some clean drinking water? It's possible. The average monthly salary for a Nepalese family is $48. There's a saying, "Can one person change the world? Of course, that's the only thing that does." Clearly we can't stop earthquakes but maybe we can make some kind of difference. Needless to say I'll donate this month's proceeds to relief efforts.
Broke-Ass Cookbook
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