text: Codgertation: Big Issue magazine sellers and Bentley cars passing by. Life in Marlow.
  Home~Chapter by Chapter~Big Issues and Bentleys
  Big Issues and Bentleys
  At last, a day when you're not going to fall off your bike because of ice, and it's not lashing down with rain either.
  Bentleys might be common in Berkshire but Big Issue sellers are an even more common sight.
  Going through Marlow today, I saw the precise moment when a new Bentley passed by a chap selling the Big Issue. Also today, I saw some claim that if the top 10 richest people in the world pooled their money, that would fund feeding the world's poorest one billion (yes, billion) people for over 200 years.
  It's very unlikely the chap driving the Bentley is directly responsible for the Big Issue seller's plight.
  I know the claim about the richest people funding the poorest would need to be heavily qualified – that it's glib and easy to pull apart.
  But despite all the essential caveats and any reasonableness, you can't help but wonder at how wrong the values of society commonly are, world-wide, when there's such obvious gross inequality reaching right down to the basics – food, water, shelter.
  I cannot imagine what it would be like to be one of those richest people in the world, knowing I could do that much to make such a big difference to so many people. I cannot imagine knowing that but not acting on it.
  If you can't put yourself in someone's shoes, does that make you unimaginative or lacking in empathy somehow? I don't know how I should respond to that inability on my part. On the other hand, is it only by dint of not being able to adopt that mindset that I can see it's wrong? Perhaps a lack of imagination or empathy has a value.