used to do the surgery for girls in the eighties but gravity always wins

I once had this teacher who told us to read an article about poverty and begging. After we were all done, she asked us what we did whenever we saw beggars. Did we give them money? Did we walk past them? Did we acknowledge them? Most said they walked past with the arguments that they'll only spend money on drugs and whatnot. This teacher was not one of my favorites-- I even hated her at times. Because you can have so much knowledge you could outrun the greatest teachers in the world, but knowledge only won't make you a great teacher. Nevertheless, it's this moment I think I remember the most of all her classes, when I gained more respect for her (sadly this was one of her last classes). Her questions were mostly meant as rhetorical questions (a figure of speech in the form of a question that is asked in order to make a point). And she told us to look at people's faces at the article. Not to ignore them and shut them out of our eyesight. What she wanted to get across to us that day was the message to be human. Until today I'd forgotten about this. On my list of things to do this summer, I wrote "read all the nursing magazines". Because I'm a member of NSF (Norske Sykepleie Forbund), I get monthly magazines that issues important problems and questions, medical studies, and more. I've not read through any of these because of lack of time, but mostly pure laziness. But today I sat down in the living room, and I started going through them. I've not read everything, and I have not gone through them all just yet. But I came across this article, which is the reason for why I remembered my teacher who told us to be human, and why I am writing this now. It issues the problems of poverty. Of asylum seekers, beggars, prostitution, etc. And the article is made to try get an impression from you. It's not neutral, it's not Switzerland. And it writes thing like: "We have a poor tendency in Norway to place things we do not like far out of sight". But it is points like these that makes a discussion, that makes attention. Tholens, the author of the article wrote: "It is embarrassing that we no longer stand the sight of those who are less successful than ourselves. We might be free from the suffering of others, but risk inflicting ignorance upon ourselves". It's a response to our government wanting to get rid of the beggars, or maybe a response to how the government manage these problems in general. I felt so incredibly stuck by that statement. Obviously it's not entirely true for everyone, but we sort of do want to remove the beggars out of sight, so we won't have to deal with them in our everyday life. Tell me: when you walk past beggars, do you see them? Do you look at their faces? Are you human? Think about it. On my way to school today I walked past a group of what I'm guessing are homeless people playing Ai Se Eu Te Pego. And it sort of made my day-- they definitely got a grin stretched wide and a laugh from me. And I do very much love the people who plays instruments in Oslo's streets. It's one of the reasons why I do love Oslo. But I don't love the beggars, and I walk by without reading their signs. I don't acknowledge them. And for the longest time my excuse has been that it's depressing. That I don't like being aware of things like poverty because it makes me depressed. Do you know what the antonym of research is? Ignorance. And they say ignorance is bliss. And that's how I've lived my life for the last years. For my whole life maybe. But reading this article has opened my mind, perhaps triggered me. It has made me realise that I've been ignorant, and made stupid choices. I'm not going to say that because of this article I'm going to spread money to beggars and sit down and try to have a chat. I'm most likely not going to do that. I'm not going to become a saint. But I'm not going to avoid reading news anymore. I'm not going to inflict ignorance upon myself as I have been for so long. And I will try to be human. To let myself feel sad for other unfortunate people, and to think of the person sitting there on the street. The article is in Norwegian and it's called "Ut av synsfeltet" by Barth Tholens. You can read it, or not. Maybe you have already. It's up to you, really. I never usually discuss serious things like these-- and this is in fact politics, which I've also tried avoiding as much as I can. And hey, I'm not saying that we should all be sympathetic and empathetic about poor people and not make any restrictions or laws concerning how to remove these issues. That's not it. The point is as my teacher nicely put it: be human.