I was recently forwarded Bill Gates’ speech from the Harvard Commencement from a friend.

This friend and I have a friendly back and forth about Mr Gates. I, as a consultant and systems developer, have a great disdain for Microsoft products and predatory business practices. My friend, as a researcher in the field of public health, has great respect for Mr. Gates since his foundation picked up the funding for Johns Hopkins to continue the work of the excellent nutrition research she participated in for more than a decade in Nepal.

I have to admit, this was a great speech and I will grant her that Bill Gates has, after many years of predatory business practices that have made his extremely mediocre product ubiquitous and garnered him a fat butt-load of cash, grown into a force for positive change to be reckoned with.

He did have one particularly salient point, I thought. The marketing of the “Tragedy Du Jour” does distract us from the protracted, less sexy, problems that don’t go away and confront a much greater portion of the world population.

Recently, I came in contact with a group of people putting a great deal of effort into raising money and awareness for a pretty rare disease that took the life of a peer. This was an understandable response to tragic loss and it demonstrates the esteem in which this individual was held. I did, however, step back and consider why put such care and energy into a disease that takes the lives of less than 300 people a year when there are other problems equally deserving of those resources that could help many more people.

I think we respond very well with a great deal of caring and sacrifice to problems that are immediate and important, like a Hurricane, a Tsunami, or a Bridge Collapse. It is in the interstices of these that most of us are cast adrift, waiting for the evening news to bring us our next cause.

I’m going to try to make my giving more considered and consistent, now that I think of it.