something missing
i don't feel anything about new orleans. i didn't feel anything about the world trade center, and i was just a few miles north of that. right now, i know it has happened, i know people are suffering, but i haven't lost any sleep over it.
there's some disconnectedness here. after reading other people's blogs, i wonder if i'm missing some piece of emotional equipment that everyone else has.
i stood in line at st. luke's to donate blood until we were told that they would not be able to use all the blood they already had. i did not see the site until i happened to take a PATH train to new jersey. i'll donate money to red cross after i deposit my paycheck, after reading the suggestion on christian's blog. because it's the right thing to do. but i don't feel invested. what causes that, or doesn't?
i cried once at a funeral. uncle fred, a good family friend, had passed away, and he had always been really nice to my whole family. what a guy. he was so cool. when we walked up to his family, i looked into auntie lily's face and my heart kind of just surged with this sadness for her, knowing that they were such good people and that they should have had a lot lot more time together. i felt embarassed about it afterwards, because who the hell am i to cry at his funeral like that? when his family was being so brave and so strong. but i can't really go back and explain myself to everyone there, and hopefully they understood why exactly i did cry.
i knew him. i know her. but i don't know the people in new orleans. is that a different kind of empathy? is there some part of the human psyche that empathizes with people one knows and a different part that empathizes with people one has never met?
1 Comments:
So you're not the most (overly) sensitive empath in the world. So what? You didn't call up Nature and request a hurricane, and you can't really do anything real to help anybody there except for donating money. Feeling bad is not going to help them.
To live is to suffer. When it gets too bad, we either cry or laugh... and most people generally try to live each day as little as possible so that they might be able to do it again tomorrow. There's no room in anybody's life to suffer for everybody else who experiences something tragic, and it doesn't do them any good anyhow.
So many other people probably verbalize how bad they feel about it because it reminds them that they would be suffering if they were any closer to that tragedy -- physically or otherwise. Seems like, for you, it's enough to just know it.
...Or I could always be projecting my own feelings onto you. That's never something one can spot easily. If that's the case, then you can feel a little bit better knowing you're not the only one who isn't losing sleep over the situation.
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