The Ostrich
I’m leaning forward, my finger poised over the dial. On the radio, a man is talking about his brother.
“He was home for his 18-day leave. It was Thanksgiving, so we celebrated Christmas – ”
He falters, and I can hear the tears in his voice as surely as I can feel them running down my own cheeks. That was his brother’s last “Christmas”.
I feel a responsibility to bear witness to the suffering of a fellow human being, even when the topic is a war that I don’t understand well enough to justify an opinion, and especially when this lack of understanding also represents a failure.
But where is the time to understand? And how can I bear witness without being dragged down? And what purpose would my anonymous, impotent listening serve?
A man loses a brother. A bullied teen gives up. A child is stolen.
And my finger hovers until, with the click of a button, I bury my head in the sand.
Other places I ramble
Stack Overflow
12 Comments
Woah.
You sound… surprised.
I am okay with not listening to certain things. I don’t deny they happen. I know. I just don’t always have the capacity for hearing.
That is a very good way of putting it. Thanks, that makes me feel better.
I’m really bad at disengaging emotionally from others… and sometimes feel an obligation to share their pain – strange…. I realise! So, I understand what you mean – feeling somehow responsible / needing to be there to ‘support’ them!
Deb
That’s it exactly, Deb. I think it’s what makes (keeps?) us human. But it doesn’t necessarily make any sense.
I find listening to the hard stuff, well, hard. And I don’t always do. Example, I can’t even begin to listen to Afganada (that show on CBC). As soon as it comes on I have to change the channel. I find a lot of news stories hard and I don’t often read them or listen to them. Like Brie I don’t deny the bad exists but my mental health only allows me to handle so much.
Hey Chantal, I find the same thing with Afganada. It depends on the episode, and I guess what my tolerance is for the day, but it can get pretty intense too.
Depending in where I am in my own life and what’s happening sometimes burying my head in the sand is the only way I can get through the day. It doesn’t feel good but it’s a survival mechanism.
A necessary evil. Yes.
I struggle with this too … the choice to engage in a stranger’s sadness … is it worth the emotional toil on ourselves? Does it actually do anyone any good?
I don’t know. It might if it pushed us to act, but try to act on it all and you’ll go crazy. Clearly there is no easy answer, but it’s good to know that there are others asking the same questions.