too close too home
Lately for lots of reasons I find myself feeling pretty dreamy and pretty hazy and it seems to be a good place to be for processing thoughts and feelings, but not exactly lending itself to a coherent narrative for blogging. Sometimes I feel I’m just holding lots of fragments of things together in my head, and some fragments are the tip of an iceberg, and some are just jetsam maybe.
At best this is gonna be a fragmented. I was waiting to get my haircut last week and listening to these women talking about the NIU shooting. I was particularly tuned in because my one of my dearest and oldest friends teaches there and was on campus that day and in short, she is ok. These women were talking about how they thought the world had become more violent and they blaming it on video games and violence on TV and in movies, etc. They continued that way for a while, in that banal vein, with me holding my tongue, in part because I am fascinated with how people try and make sense of the fucked up shit that happens in their lives. It’s like grasp, grasp , grasp, look for someone or something to blame so we can push away to a safe distance the awful randomness of violence, the real potential that all of us are easy targets in a world that has no particular interest in our personal well beings. Plus, I was thinking more violent than what? than a horrible history of lynching, than a world war only 60 years ago that took 72 million people’s lives, than soldiers coming home these days without legs and arms, than women systematically raped and tortured in Darfur. It’s when violence hits to close to home for the comfortable mass, that everyone throws up their arms in alarm. I feel for my friend and all the faculty, students and staff at NIU and for the shooter and his family. But I’m sorry the world is not more violent.
Can’t say I’m sorry there isn’t more violence, but that’s an acute point. Is it possible to increase awareness and empathy with attention?
‘grasp, grasp, grasp’ – fear, the great and subtle motivator. I’ve lived it and can occasionally see it clearly, yet still find myself entangled in it.
most of us (in my world, anyway) enjoy the luxury of violence’s absence. there’s a universe of crap within reach if you’re looking for it, that’s for sure (domestic violence, military violence, etc). but you’re right, when it’s a situation that looks familiar as opposed to some foreign land, the response is different. in general, i tend to think things are less globally violent today, but mostly i feel like i don’t have the ability to measure such things. WW2, Korea and Vietnam all far outstrip the contemporary middle east in terms of raw carnage. so what’s the appropriate response to something as random and pointless as a student shooting?
great food for thought ned and pep. i wish fear were only a subtle motivator for me. unfortunately, something somewhere along the line the volume on that emotion got turned up too high. and i’ve been struggling with what is the appropriate response to these school shootings. empathy and attention are good starts, and for me awareness of all sort of other violence that has been or is being visited on folks. gratitude for my own safety. i need to think about this more, but i’m very glad you responded.
i guess i was thinking on on the luxury of not having to worry about violence, not having to watch your step, waht you do or say, where danger lurks. in know i’m hypervigilant and see danger where it doesn’t exist, but i ws thinking of all the folks that don’t have that luxury. i might be articulating my thoughts very well right now.