Last Updated on July 31, 2021
Update Jul 2017: Linkin Park lead singer died due to suicide- dangers of unchecked depression
Previously, I’ve never been a fan of Linkin Park. However, their song, “What I’ve Done” changed my entire perspective of the group. These are the guys who wrote a song with many thought provoking messages. I think the group would have earn a much bigger fan base that were previously not from their targeted audience, and at the same time, imparting a good message across to their existing fan base – just with that song alone.
The video clip, with a series of pictures, tells a story that a thousand words may not effectively express, but I would like to cover on the portion of food:
All we could think about is food, food, food. In the morning, we think about what we want to eat for lunch, after lunch, we wondered what to have for tea, then for dinner. Sometimes, if we are going out with friends, we are already planning our dinner in our minds.
We just keep eating and overeating, stuffing ourselves with more food that our system can handle. Sometimes, there are lots of extra food that we throw away.
We are obsessed with self-image, we are obsessed with how we look. Some even go to the extend of throwing up excessive food because they could not let the food build out excess pounds in their body. We hate and curse the body that we are born with or blaming the “fat genes”. We never learned to love ourselves or appreciate the many miracles of life- such as a healthy and complete body. Instead, we yearned for that “model body”. Under all that, it is just that “inner child” in us that want to be accepted and loved.
All the while, we hate to be reminded of the millions of starving population out there. Yes, sometimes we get annoyed when others tell us, “clean your plate because there are many other people having nothing to eat”. Sometimes, it takes a grim picture to be shown to us before we can see.
The moral of the story is not to be upset when people tell you about starving people in Africa. It will be more appropriate to say that we should not be too obsessed about our body image. Many people, in order to look good, hate themselves, starve themselves, eat and later throw up the food, have the practice of leaving half the food eaten. Many poor people would be willing to work a day’s of hard labor in order to take your unfinished/untouched food back to their starving kids.
If we punish and torture our bodies, telling ourselves that we are ‘bad’ when we overeat, in a way, we are not very different from the minds of starving people. You see, when the food supplies come to a starving populations, these unfortunate people had to rush and fight for food because they do not know when their next meal is coming from. Whereas for us, we hungrily devour fashion (designed in a way that only very thin people can wear), glossy magazines, latest diets and fads. Day and night, we aim to achieve something- a certain body weight, to fit into certain clothes and yet when we finally could do that, we wonder why we felt so empty.
On a notice board at a temple where I used to take my lunch, there is a big signboard that says “Tressure Your Blessings” and show pictures of many starving children. It is heartbreaking to see this.
