"In the Jungle, The Mighty Jungle, The Lion Sleeps Tonight ..."

The lion is not sleeping tonight. The lion, Cecil, is dead.

I do not know all of the particulars surrounding his tortured demise, because I cannot force myself to learn more of the details than I already know. Details that would haunt me as my mind tried to wrap itself around the cruelty and senselessness of the entire scenario of "money buying pleasure." PLEASURE. Apparently, a common pastime of the rich, trophy hunting, occurs far more frequently than most people realized, at least until now that is.

The death of Cecil has reminded me:

• The news media and social media have the power to sensationalize or neutralize stories/events
• Depending on the news on the particular day, humans will or will not latch on to a story, relevance being secondary to prevalence - how prevalent major news stories are on any given day
• People in many countries gravitated to the plight of this beautiful creature and his cruel, senseless killing because it struck an emotional cord, embroiling a fresh topic not frequently written about
• These people, these citizens, unified - igniting emotion in others, strangers, one person at a time and ultimately this unification created one loud voice
• This one loud voice used the freedom of speech, utilized the democratic processes, petitioned lawmakers and government agencies, engaged the power of consumer spending to send a message to businesses, corporations, organizations - a very loud message, that such acts of senseless cruelty against wildlife would not be tolerated.
• If the message is kept alive, if the momentum is not allowed to dwindle, we will see change - change of a magnitude in direct proportion to the volume of that unified voice.

All for a magnificent, previously unknown lion.

There is horrific social injustice in this world. People, as exhibited with Cecil, are mindful that there is power in social media, power in numbers, power in one unified voice, power to create change. People became a voice for a lion. Then why have these humans, who are able, not become a voice for the millions and millions of souls, human and creature, who live in unspeakable states of suffering?

Once again, the death of Cecil has reminded me:

Humans have the power to create positive change in this world, but humans, as a race, are selfish.

In the jungle, this mighty jungle (of a world), do not let the lion (in you) sleep tonight.  Lift up your voice and ROAR about the suffering, ROAR to unify one person at a time, and together we humans can create change in this world.

In memory of Cecil.