Tragedies great and small across the world, and what they do to us.

[mckitterick]

I was just reading a friend's post about getting shot in the butt by a drive-by, and I burst into a big crying jag. At first I couldn't figure out why that would bother me so much; he was okay afterward, and it even inspired him to stop carrying a gun, himself.

I realize what whacked me was thinking of how people treat each other: a delayed response to what happened 10 years ago on Sunday and all the other ways that people hurt and destroy one another. Sometimes we can ignore the bad news on the radio, sometimes we can forget the inhumanity of humankind to others, but we don't really stop caring, the pain and disillusionment doesn't stop building. We hear stories about inhumanity like those assholes in the Republican debate audience who laughed at the death of the uninsured, or what the Palestinians and Israelis are doing to one another, or the Syrians, or the Afghans; we hear about violent robberies, we suffer our own small but devastating personal tragedies, we encounter any of a million other conflicts big and small that blaze around the world every single day. And, usually, we're able to distance ourselves from those things, resist getting too emotional about them.

But the pain is still there, bubbling under the surface, and once in a while one little thing is enough to open a crack, and the pressure is released in a great flood of tears.

I love this horrible and wonderful species, but sometimes it breaks my heart.

Chris

Comments

[siro-gravity.livejournal.com]

oh!!! a dude who cries for the right reasons = LOVE!!!!

seriously, though, i know what you mean and i get the same feelings of despair for what we are capable of.

i think that people have an amazing capacity for cruelty and also an amazing capacity for kindness and decency. it's just that the cruel things we see hit us upside the head harder than the solace we get from the good.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I agree that people can be both things - in fact, that's a lot of what my next novel is all about, this duality of concern and despicable.

I think this is why it's easier to cry at the happy things, the bittersweet things, than those are are just horrible: We expect and hear about the horrible things all the time, so when we get the unexpected delight, it's hard to bear.