I have been watching the way most of us do:
Seeing the news, the wars and joys
And not being touched by any of it.
Is that, perhaps, how gods feel?
This remoteness -- not a lack of caring, merely not caring enough,
Not being foolish enough to care for those unknown people.
Isn't it wise to refuse to carry the world on your shoulders?

I watch, and listen. I observe the attempts at peace, and the wars.
Some saying the war is right, others claiming it is wrong,
But it never matters. The soldiers are still fighting,
Still killing in the name of our country even if we hate this war.
Some claim life has a point or purpose, but watching this war from afar,
You have to wonder what the whole point of it is.
How can something be without a point, without meaning?
But I see no point to war, to slaughter. Death is not meaning.

There are those who claim that to be human
We have to have no animal within us,
But how can we make claim to having logic or reason
When we kill each other for dirt
And slaughter other animals for our fashions?!

And the war goes on, the deaths still continue
As you and I watch it from afar --
Too wise to feel emotion for those we never knew, and yet
Without caring, one is not human. Without those who care
Fools, rebels, hippies, activists, radicals -- whatever name we give them --
The war will not end. Even if they can't stop it, at least they try.
At least they act, which the rest of us sit unmoving,
Untouched by those deaths or loves or griefs.

If this unfeeling, this lack of true caring and deeper feeling
Is what it would mean to be a god, I wish to be human.
To be human is to care about others.
So I shut off the TV, close the old and new books,
And do, act, be -- participate, become human
By caring, even for those who do not care for me,
Even care for those observers who just watch,
They whose give silent consent to war, poverty and crime.

To be human is to care, and act on that caring.
Those who do nothing are not human
And not worthy of even being called animals.
I want to do -- and I shall because I can:
I want to care about war, to feel death even if it hurts,
Perhaps even because it hurts.
I want to know the deeper feelings, the hurt and joys
Of other people. Even the little feelings might be enough.
I have had enough of simply watching, enugh of being a god.
I want to be able to truly feel again,
I wish to end the judgements from afar
So I will act. For good or ill doesn't mater yet,
As long as I do something,
The important thing is being alive, acting
Instead of simply reacting, becoming instead of simply being.
I will no long observe, I will not be passive --
I will change my life, I will try and care about strangers,
Try and become the kind of human I think we are meant to be.

Yet the bombs will still fall.
But at least I will act against it, fight war
(even if that is a contradiction in terms)
And not sit aside, judging things I know nothing of.
I will no longer observe from afar as if I were a god --
I will act, and if nothing else
I will be remembered as someone who did something,
Even if they hate me, they will know that much.

- Josh MacLeod (1999)