It is sad when apathy creeps in... When I see post after post completely overloaded with emotion and I know or see these people in real life (and it used to be week to week) and they are just the same as they would be any other day. I truly wonder if anyone really grieves or feels anything when they blast it on social media. I see them later, perhaps the same day, fresh faced, no sleep lost, not even a grimace in their eyes, after they say things like "it hurts so much." I turn to be unphased and untrusting. I turn to be weary of all the latest issues even though at some point I did feel an immense weight over these things so much that I did lose sleep, I could not eat, and I could barely function at some points. I wonder then if it is solely I who feels deeply and actually puts weight to every word I say, good or bad. This cannot be true. There must be others who are earnest with their words.
It seems so very easy to fight it out on a website with someone else, so easy to say whatever your conscience has decided is right based on whatever drives you even if it pushes people who were once close to you further and further away. "Stand up and be heard!" Is that the price of this "freedom of speech" we claim to own in the USA? Is that how one chooses to own that right, to be so engrossed in an opinion, that may very well change within minutes given the right circumstances, that you make an enemy of another human being and feel justified? You feel justified over an idea that is so gray and so technical and so complicated more then you feel justified to respect another human? It is true that in this society we are so physically disconnected with one another yet so intimately connected in mind because of the ease of access to thoughts and ideas. It adds a sense of being able to release deep pain or joy without the need of being known, labeled, or identified solely by that emotion or happening. It gives you the freedom to be anonymous, yet is it really freedom?
Our thoughts and ideas have become so outside of ourselves that we also take the thoughts and ideas of others outside of them. A human with flesh, blood, emotion and a heart beat, breathing air in and out is on the other side of that screen. However, we seem to define our very identity by our ideas because without then some may say we aren't even human. We have heard this is every which way and form but what grieves me now is how humans are lost in a sea of heated emotional out bursts, the latest trends if games, sports, pass-times and whatever is making money for someone out there be it the media or the people feeding these new games and applications to us. Do we need a device to dictate how long we have walked to get sense of accomplishment? Do we need a device to tell us who of our friends is acceptable?
Debates have become cut throat, ultimatum land where you must, surely you must, agree one side of the latest "injustice" and have a clear argument or you have no value as a human being. Do we even know what love is anymore? A person who I hold value in not because I know him well nor because he has gained any deep sense of trust but because we shared words in person more than once, was in the hospital very recently. The news of this was posted in a popular social media website, completely over shadowed by endless rants about whatever was a hot topic that week. What if I had never seen him again, hey, not sure if I still might never see him again, but right now I know I have a chance. It was always important to me to keep tabs on people, day to day, week to week, month to month. It would often depend on the accessibility to each individual person. I fell victim, however, to this circus phenomena of "what is everyone angry about this week?" These issues were always things that I thought mattered, my guess is that it is the same for many others who rage online, but what has mattered most to me, most of my life, is truly knowing the hearts of those with whom I can share and have life.
There was a time I was told I had a big heart. Today it seems to have grown such deep callouses that I mock whatever it is that is hyping up everyone I know. Do I still care about these things, to some degree, yes. However, I would rather talk about whatever is effecting my friend today, right now, good or bad because that is tangibly the only real and true way I have of loving a human being. I don't want to shove my head in the sand and act as if the rest of the earth does not exist, but the more I think of those things which I cannot solve in a million years the more it hurts. A friend recently made me see something I realized a while ago, I cannot give myself room to enjoy life because of all the hurt out there, sometimes it is all I can see, and I turn to myself, who I pushed to live a life of love, and tell her, you fail, everyone one you love is hurting, and all you can do is laugh. It is far too much to carry; especially when I read one thing and see another. It is hard enough to love one person fully, yet I truly believe to love one person with all your heart is more in the end because love is interesting that way, when it is real it over flows, and reaches far beyond our limits. Am I happy about the violence in the world, no, but I can't do much more than what is within my reach. That should be enough for anyone to feel accomplished. I think that is all I wanted to say right now.
