It’s hard to find anything sensible on social media; too many images tend toward the horribly violent – riots and executions this week – to the inane. This latest fad of dumping ice water is telling.Done in the name of a worthy cause – finding a cure for Lou Gehrig’s Disease – the hype of who’s doing it, not to mention how effectively they are dousing themselves as well as who’s being challenged and who accepts that challenge has become a predictably stupid focus. Justin Bieber was called out for not having ice, Charlie Sheen for dumping money and President Obama for not doing it at all. While the challenge is an effective marketing ploy that has brought attention to a real medical issue, it also demonstrates a damning tendency of our need to fit in. Rather than calling on each other to watch these cold water farces, it would make so much more sense to donate, just donate, quietly and thoughtfully, and nothing else.

Just as we would all like to see an end to suffering, it would really be something to see this change progress not as another fad – and so not streaking and tweeting – but rather as something we share and consider and then act as best we can. Helping one another; that’s the rub.