I awake to a pinch
and an uncomfortable feeling, I picked my head up and quickly wrestled
my pillow into submission. I reach under my pillow and felt for my
phone. The luminesce cut through the darkness unforgivingly, and forced
me to quint to read the time. 4:12am it read. With a press of a button,
the light died and I retreated into the darkness from which I came. I
tried to close my eyes, hopefully slip back into temporal coma for a
couple of hours, but insomnia vetoed the decision. Something was making
me uncomfortable. I kicked and rolled but the discomfort held on like
talons in a prey. I laid supine, staring at the ceiling, almost as if I
could see through the concrete and wood into the stars. Although this
particular night there will be no stars because of the rain.
It
was time to face my demons head on. Why was I so uncomfortable?
Immediately a thought I was brooding over last night came to mind,
almost as if to say, “we have unfinished business”. I must warn you, the
could be very distasteful to some, so read with caution, because in my
head I spare nothing to censorship. Let me gentle lead you into this by
introducing you to the origin of that thought. As always, the human mind
is incapable of creating anything out of thin air (a theory I strongly
support, for we fashion everything out of what is already in existence),
and so did my thought. I close friend of mine just lost her
grandfather, which I found out in the afternoon. Funny enough the day
before I was reminiscing some of the conversation I had with my
great-grandmother. When I got the news of her loss, really, I didn’t
give more thought than saying under my breath “this sucks”, and I moved
on. Now I’m sure most people do the same. Really you can be bother by
this loss. One he’s not my relative, so that my primary detachment.
Secondly, his death has no direct consequences to me, secondly
detachment factor. So I justify myself for the lack of empathy until I
called her.
Now,
there something about human beings which astonishes me, yet prevails
almost equivocally. I guess it can be attribute to evolution, or God
given nature (which I doubt, if we are made in the image and liking of
God like the Good Book says). When one person dies, it’s a tragedy. When
a large number dies, it’s a sad event but we treat it like collateral
damage. Let me illustrate with an example. Recently a doc tor in Utah
killed his wife and almost all the news stations covered it extensively.
When people in the mall in Kenya were attacked and killed, some nations
identified their own and mentioned them by name and mourned for them.
Collectively, all the victims could not be mourned. Why is that? Is one
life worth more than many. This doesn’t make sense. Again one death is a
tragedy, many is collateral damage drive on.
Now
is this lack of empathy for the mass death borne out of depravity? I
submit to you, not. I mean how would we? We are only human. Imagine if
every human being felt the same sadness as those who are affected by a
loss/death, also consider that an average 107 lives are lost every
minute. Now ponder that for a minute. Do you now agree why our capacity
to grieve/show empathy has been greatly limited to close proximity? I’d
say evolutionally not a God-like attribute or resemblance. For God sees
everything, knows everything and is concerned about everybody. If this
is true, then God spared us the trouble and we weren’t made (at least
not 100%) in the image of God. I know what you are thinking, heresy.
Again I spare nothing to censorship. Back to my friend, when I called
her, the atmosphere she presented was unmistakably sorrow drenched. Her
voice shook, spirit was down and immediate I was connected to her loss.
My ‘one person at a time’ capacity was available to lend the space. As
predictable as I was, I didn’t stay long with her. I had been there done
that, I couldn’t stand the sadness. Not because I don’t like awkward
situations when people are sad, (which I don’t) or I demean her loss as
none essential, but inwardly my dials are broken. I’ll explain. This is
why I couldn’t sleep. This is why I am so far removed from emotion. It’s
either I elicit a full measure of any emotion or I don’t at all. So
most people see me as stoic. This I believe is just one of the symptoms
of a broken dial.
End of part One
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