A few days ago a friend of mine posted the aftermath images from the gas attack in Syria. She didn't write anything. She didn't state her opinion or make some political statement about the photos. She just posted the images.

The first comment on her post was from a family friend of hers. Disgusted, the woman wrote, "Don't post this shit. I don't want to see it." And there's the problem: we don't want to see it, but we need to.

Syria's attacks are a heavy reminder of the faults in our world. It's not pretty, and the photos are disturbing, but we need to see them because, without them, we become ignorant. We become ignorant and romanticize the world and we begin to lack self-awareness. We need to take a hard look at these photos and use the discomfort they evoke as a means for motivation. Take the unsettlement in your stomach and go donate money. Take your disgust and go protest.

These humans died. There were children and parents and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters in this attack. There were lovers and fighters, and now 70 of them are dead, and what are we doing? Scrolling through social media, barely looking at their faces, barely recognizing how much this hurts our world as a whole?

I don't care what your political stance is. I don't care if you like Syria or not or agree with our President, or if you really just don't want to get involved with politics. What I do care about is humanity; how can we sit by and let these people die? How can people not care that lives were violently and painfully taken away for the sake of something no one will remember in a few years?

So look at the photos. Scroll through them. Stare into the faces of those dead children, into the pain filled eyes of the few survivors. Look and feel. Look and be aware. Look and think. And then act.