Last night we were overwhelmed by Paris violence and the ugliness of ISIS. We are reminded that Beirut too was attacked two days before and wasn't given the same news coverage. And Syria experiences the magnitude of the Paris attack daily. In our family we have children jailed for acts that have their roots in the violence born when this country was stolen. We still fight daily for our lands, our place in our indigenous homelands. We have relatives, family members, tribal members, friends throughout the country and other countries who suffer from diabetes, cancer, violent acts, depression, alcoholism, meth addiction, proscribed drug addiction, body fallout from colonized foods ...We grieve the losses and each of us attempts compassion and understanding though so much of the suffering appears to make no sense at all. Now, not only do we know and suffer stories of immediate and local violence, we are privy to an immense global catalogue of carnage and suffering.
The weight of even the immediate family and local stories was always more than enough to carry. When we witness stories however they are transmitted: by text, phone, Internet, television, satellite, social media, or other story gathering means, we become part of them. In this age of global communication, we humans are in essence being forced to partake in massive world violence.
What do we do with all this suffering?
1 comment:
I read an article years ago by a psychologist who said that our minds have the capacity to take in, process and assimilate information about our family, friends and community. The advent of television and radio introduced us to news of the world and the world wide web has ensured that that news is blasted into our consciousness, no matter how we try to filter and choose. The author postulated that our minds cannot take in this knowledge of suffering on a global scale in a healthy way, and so our collective minds have been broken by the weight of all this calamity over which we are powerless. I try to focus on positive actions I can take, but often feel swept away by the knowledge of mass suffering beyond my comprehension.
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