Short (ish) term depression seems like a pretty appropriate response to having the shittiness of so many other human beings rubbed in your face. At some point it is good to try to get over it, hopefully constructively by being a good person, but I think people end up making themselves worse by trying to “deal with” being upset too quickly (typically by distracting themselves or saying “just forget about it”). Being blase about car bombing doesn’t seem healthy to me.
That said, once you do want to get out of your funk, I third the “do something good” suggestion. For me personally, working with kids really helped me deal with some of the harder times in my life.
What this completely misses is the fact that evil is concentrated but good is dispersed.
Destruction is easier than creation. One person can indeed kill 200. But how many other people are there who are just living their lives, raising and loving their kids, teaching, healing, doing good? I’ll tell you: FUCKING BILLIONS OF PEOPLE.
The news always focuses on the survival threats because that’s what worries people: that their generally good lives might end through no fault of their own. But the fact is that most of the time, most people are pretty damn good.
Now, you’re living in an area of the world that is more rife with vengeance and systemic conflict than almost any other. So it makes sense that it’s hard for you to see this. Do you have any options? Have you considered going somewhere that’s not so completely violently twisted? Because for me, living in an area that’s not overrun with violence is absolutely key for my sanity – especially since I have a two-and-a-half year old daughter and a one-month-old son. They won’t grow up surrounded by violence, because we’ll do whatever’s necessary to take them out of such environments.
So it’s okay to suggest reading old books for a laugh, but not okay to suggest watching porn? All of these are band-aids (they’re not going to stop Palestinians from killing each other/everyone else, and it looks like he’s not going to stop caring about it), so why is the form of the band-aid so important?
There is a classic experiment that lead to the creation of the theory of depression called learned helplessness. A dog was in a box where it couldn’t get out. They shocked the dog a few times, from which it could not escape. They then gave the dog a way to escape the shock and tried shocking it again. The animal just took it, and stayed there. It had resigned itself to being shocked.
The remedy is to start working toward fixing it all, or at least a piece. The state of the world, and its future, is the wickedest problem of all, and working on it is the wickedest game.
Those who profit as their actions inflict suffering stay in power when the masses are isolated, whether through violence, hopelessness, or apathy toward fellow human beings.
At our fingertips are tools that can be used for mass social communication and social coordination. They need to be used more often, more efficiently, and more inventively by people such as yourself who dare give a shit. And I do mean dare, because you will have people trying to tell you bettering the world is not possible, or not worth it, and that you should give up, or distract yourself so you don’t have to deal with it.
You’ve already started to identify important issues; they’re not exactly hiding. In fact, there are many books, articles, and websites written about these very issues. There’s a huge starting knowledgebase. www.globalissues.org alone has a lot of starting material. It was created by a single person.
Start building a social network of other people who dare give a shit. I’ll be a node in that network. I invite you to talk with me directly about it, and will be PMing you.
I suggested no such thing, Mr. Liz. Or, wait, are you another Jose? I get all confused.
My suggestion came from recently re-reading books that meant a lot to me when I was younger. Fortunately, it turns out I wasn’t a total dumb-ass when I was in my twenties. Many of the books have held up and I’m delighted to find not only that I still love them, but that I can appreciate them even more. I guess books have to be fairly important to you for this to work, however.
But by all means, don’t let me stop you from piling on to advocate bootstrapping one’s self via cheap porn and whiskey!
I rarely feel better after watching porn. I kinda feel like how Hoffman looks after hanging up the phone in Happiness. Doesn’t stop me though, because until then, it’s all still fantasy land. Maybe my problem is I don’t combine it with enough alcohol.
In response to your original post, just remember that things that are normal are not newsworthy. Remember that when confronted with stories of death and despair and politicians’ responses. This is what you hear about in a newsroom because it’s not what happens to most people most of the time.
