"I don’t watch the news because it’s all awful and just makes me feel bad. I want to hear and read happy things that make me feel good. Life is too short…."
It’s especially short when your neighborhood is bombed with missiles made in the USA. It’s especially short when your neighborhood is flooded from changing weather patterns caused by those who value money over life and therefore disregard the pollution and toxicity they cause. It’s especially short when…
Why should we not know these things? Well, what can we do about it? We can do nothing. So what’s the point in just making oneself miserable by watching the news or reading about atrocities and repression and famines and weather catastrophes? What’s the point, if there’s nothing we can do?
But, there is something we can do. There’s something we should do, something that is our responsibility to do, something we’re meant to do. We can care enough to inquire about the welfare of our fellow beings. Not the “Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine, and you.” “I’m great, thanks.” that means absolutely nothing and obviates real connection. We can care enough to remember what caring feels like. We can feel at least a portion of the pain others are feeling. We can care enough to know that it’s our government, our capitalist way of life that is causing the pain, the willful destruction. We can feel the extreme remorse that comes with knowing other living beings are being wounded, tortured, their lives shattered and that all too often the cause is a government that claims to be doing it for us, for our "lifestyle". We may even feel enough to bring tears. That wouldn't be a tragedy. It would be supremely human, and we would survive the moment.
Just feeling again, feeling that deeply, that personally, is a gift – not only to those who are suffering, but to ourselves, because it begins to reawaken – possibly even restore – our humanity. It’s also our responsibility as adults, because it’s right and it's honest. Because it’s part of Life.
And, maybe, just maybe if we can feel that pain, carry it, can understand that our culture has steeped in it for several centuries but not always. We have lived other ways before. Then perhaps we can find a way, together, to make it stop.
