The Cost of Keeping Up
Haiti, Lebanon, Afghanistan.
For many people reading this in a timely manner from posting, the three countries I wrote above have a lot of meaning. And for those who might be more in the dark, I’ll post links to what I’m talking about.
TW: tragedy; suffering
Haiti: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/16/1027990749/haiti-earthquake-why-deadly-explainer
Afghanistan: https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/16/middleeast/gallery/taliban-afghanistan/index.html
In about a span of one week, these three countries have all collapsed in different ways. And as someone who spends a lot of time on the internet, I was bombarded with articles of these events as they happened. It was like tragedy was at every corner. And if I didn’t keep up, I was going to be a bad person. There are so many people suffering while I get to live a life of comfort so the very least I could do is stay up to date and help right?
And logistically, it might be feasible. To read the articles and stay up-to-date is just knowledge accumulation. It’s about just being able to know the facts about what is going and how things are being handled.
Emotionally though, I just can’t do it. There’s just too much. The pre-existing issues that we face are still alive and raging while new tragedies just get piled on every single day. There’s no way that I can just emotionally hold onto all of those things and be able to care and devote my time to helping all of them. I’m just not strong enough.
Luckily, a lovely Youtuber I watch named Anna Akana has a video also touching on this topic. So if you have 4 minutes, take a pause and watch her video which I’ll link here.
But as reasonable and helpful as Anna’s advice is, I still don’t feel good about only caring about a few issues. I can say that I’m passionate about the environment as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion, and education issues. These are each in their own right important and I’m glad I care about them, but I still wish I could do more. Because for me to stick to these topics and not spend more energy on learning and talking about the other issues makes me feel like a bad person. Obviously, priorities will shift as things come up like reading about what’s happening in all these other countries, but it still feels so bad. Because in every one of these issues, people, plants, and animals are suffering and dying. So for me to ignore or move away from any of them means I’m choosing to ignore their cries of pain and screams for help. And that doesn’t feel right to me.
And I think it’s this way because not everyone has those two or three issues they care passionately about. I know this is true because my Facebook feed is full of people who do not even acknowledge the existence of many of these issues. So knowing that it feels like I have to care more for them.
But man, I’m exhausted. The search for finding that balance of being aware of the world and caring for it while taking care of myself is something that I’ve never been able to pinpoint. It feels like I’m forced to just care deeply about many things until I become apathetic, and then once I soften up again the cycle continues.
Does anyone else feel the same? Does anyone have any tips? What issues do you all care about?
