This little boy is Omran.

He sits alone on a bright orange ambulance chair, covered in gray dust and his own encrusted blood. He waits silently, his tiny feet barely hanging off the edge of his seat. He lifts his hand and feels around the left side of his head where he had been injured. Despite looking down to see his hand now covered in blood, he doesn’t cry. Instead, he quickly rubs his hand on the ambulance seat and continues to wait for help.

Omran is five years old. He used to live in a home in the Syrian city of Aleppo with his mother, father, brother, and sister until it was bombed this past Wednesday. In only 48 hours, Omran had become an international sensation after a Youtube video posted by the Aleppo Media Centre had gone viral. A screenshot of bloodied Omran sitting on the ambulance seat had been taken from the video and became the inspiration for a cartoon and social media meme, both means of expressing outrage at global powers and their inability to act against the carnage in Syria. This is not, however, the first time the world has seen such a powerful and shocking look at the war in Syria. Only last September, a photo of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi whose body had washed up on a Turkish beach had caused uproar around the world.

But let me get some things straight: I don’t want to talk about politics — I want to talk about Omran Daqneesh. I want to talk about his dirty and rumpled Nickelodeon CatDog T-shirt and his cute chubby arms and legs. I want to talk about how he sits in silence despite the chaos and cacophony around him or how the sight of blood does not seem to startle him.

Omran’s innocence pains me; the way he clings to the rescuer and stares out of the ambulance in bewilderment reminds me that he is still only a child. While many of us spent our childhood days playing with the neighborhood kids or contently eating ice cream in the hot sun, Omran lost his home and almost faced death … all for a reason his young mind cannot fully understand.

In the time it takes for me to watch a Youtube video, play a game of League of Legends, or grab dinner with some friends, the lives of children like Omran are being upended in Syria. I felt an almost disgustingly selfish sense of relief that I did not have to experience the horrors these children face on a daily. While I fear making new friends and doing well in college, these children fear bombings and attacks. The video of Omran was a stark reminder of my ignorance. I quickly regretted my relief and decided that I should at least have the respect and human decency to rid myself of such ignorance and not turn a blind eye to what is happening in our world.