The Desensitization of Humanity

There's so much tragedy and pain in the world that a lot of the time we become desensitized to it. We have to, if we're to survive with our life and sanity both intact. One reason that all the money in the world wouldn't be enough to get me to live my teen years again is that when you're a teenager, you're not capable of that sort of dissociation - at least not if you want to remain functional at the same time. For teenagers, filled with hormones as they are, every world tragedy is a personal tragedy; every injustice feels like it's directed at them. I know this period of pain is necessary, because it's how we learn compassion for others, but I doubt that there's anything in the world that would be a big enough incentive for me to go through it again.

As adults, we learn to compartmentalize. Some of us more successfully than others. But now and then, some story you hear on the news hits you the way all the similar stories you heard previously didn't. Perhaps it takes place in a town where a friend lives, or the victim shares a name with someone close to you. I heard two things yesterday that hit me hard, for various - basically silly - reasons. Firstly was a guy who was beheaded on a bus in Winnipeg, Canada, which is where a good friend of mine lives. When my friend came on msn in the evening, the first thing I said was, "oh thank god, you weren't beheaded". Which is a pretty dumb thing to say, since, let's face it, Canada isn't small. And Winnipeg, although small by the standards of London or New York, still has round about three quarters of a million people in the general area, I believe. My friend pointed out how slim the chances were of him having been on that bus. And although I get his point, there was still that initial worry.

It's strange, because when the 7/7 bombings happened in London in 2005, I wasn't all that worried about my friends and family, and I know hundreds - perhaps thousands - of Londoners.

The other thing was the death of Doujon Zammit. Doujon Zammit was the young Australian tourist who was savagely beaten early this week in Mykonos by bouncers posing as police. Yesterday his father made the choice to turn off his life support machine. I came across the story completely by accident, and my first reaction was to hope and pray that he was no relation to my friend Michael (who shares his surname). Then I was instantly ashamed by my reaction - everyone is someone's sibling, someone's child, someone's cousin, someone's friend. And while my reaction is probably very human, a lot of us make the mistake of thinking "human" is synonymous with "decent". Not everything humans do is decent, as proven by the very fact that news stories like this exist. While I still believe that most humans are basically good, human nature - or human habit, whichever it may be - isn't always altruistic and kind. The survival instinct is deeply embedded in most of us, and that survival instinct prevents us from taking each and every horror to heart, makes us pick and choose which ones we weep over and which ones pass us by with barely a thought.

Most of the time I recognize this. But sometimes you can't help but feel a bit demonic.

I know you probably have felt this way at some point. Like you're an awful person for caring about some people and not others. But take it from a girl who still occasionally cries over the death of Tupac Shakur, more than ten years later, but has yet to shed a single tear for the recent earthquake and tsunami victims. You're not the only one to feel like hell about it. Most of us do, at some point.

And perhaps that's where our redemption lies.