Are you aware?

Have you been seeing these all over campus, too? The first one I noticed was in Pollock, then near McElwain and then all along Shortlidge and Pollock Road. Despite the fact that it was a Monday morning and I was therefore very tired, my exhausted brain still pondered what their meaning could be. I came up with the fact that it's probably a suicide awareness action, because I have been reading about them on "Stall Stories" and all over campus. Centre County is having a walk for it, called the "Out Of Darkness" walk and there have been a large amount of Facebook events for it.

Maybe it just seems that way to me because a boy from my high school recently committed suicide, but there appears to be a lot of recent focus on suicide and depression.

I tried thinking about what I am aware of. But how do you even ask yourself that? Do you just list problems in the world you are aware of? You could drive yourself crazy with that. Furthermore, if you're not aware of something, then you wouldn't even know you're not aware of it, because you have no idea it exists. Here at Penn State, we are especially aware of pediatric cancer. We raise money for it, but in doing so we also raise awareness. We are aware of major crises like the one in Japan and there are efforts to creating relief funds to be seen everywhere. I'm sure it was a similar situation with Haiti and Hurricane Katrina when it hit. We are aware that people are treated unjustly because of their race and the university does its best to minimize conflict, and successfully so. As a whole therefore, Penn State is a pretty 'aware' university. But what about me personally? I watch the news daily and occasionally pick up a copy of the New York Times, but that does not make me aware of everything that's going on in the world. And is simply knowing about a problem what constitutes awareness? Because if so, raising awareness is easy. But it also wouldn't help anyone. For example, I know about the impact the tsunami had on Japan. But have I donated any money? No, I haven't. So am I aware? I understand that autism exists, but I have not worked with any autistic kids. Does that mean I am aware of autism?

Do you consider yourself aware?