When my sister was younger, she used to build fairy houses for our backyard. She would nestle her creations under fallen branches and underbrush, tucking them wherever only she and her fantasy friends could find. In her mind, my mother’s leftover fabric scraps were doormats, cotton balls were beds, and battery-powered tealights were miniature fireplaces. Although childish, there was a certain magic in her innocence, watching her enthusiastically craft one shelter after the other, caring for the woodland creatures that, in her mind, were as real as those shoeboxes she built. Even now, I wonder if they are still there, overgrown with weeds but remnants of a compassion only my undoubting sister could extend.
The more I talk with others my age, the more I realize how much commonality we, as children, shared growing up. We’d build blanketed fortresses for our dolls, practice supper with our imaginary friends, and tuck our beloved stuffed animals into bed for the night before lying down ourselves. And as much as our parents attempted to sympathize with our playtime, they never understood how real the world was through our eyes: how ambitious our imaginations became as a result of our wonder. We weren’t concerned with taxes or down payments, only nurturing that which was real: the fairies in our backyards.
The philosophy that we are to care for that which we cannot necessarily see is such a universal purity amongst the global youth and an inspiration to the ideology that we are to look after what we love. As real as the fairies and dragons were in our minds as children, we eventually came to realize that no such creatures really existed, and so, we stopped constructing houses, leaving trails of food, and studying the books that made us believe. In a similar fashion, it is easy for us to forget that which does not impact our lives on a daily basis. If we cannot experience it on a dramatic level it is easy for us to dismiss it as another part of our imagination.
I guarantee many of us have never witnessed a polar glacier tumble into the sea, immigrants forcibly dragged from their families, children starved to death where food and water is not a luxury, or countless species pushed from their habitats by mass logging. Yet climate change, socio-political disparity, world hunger, and deforestation are all very real issues that exist simultaneously as some of the most serious problems in our world. Just because we do not see it does not mean they are not real, and just because we cannot always comprehend should not turn us away from extending compassion.
We are still children, just older versions of the innocence we embodied. And although we could not always touch those creatures in our backyards and bathtubs, we still cared. We ought to offer tenderness the same way we used to, even if our lives are not directly altered in monumental ways, believing and trusting that such issues do exist beyond our personal borders.
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