Have you cried? Do you care? Please tell me I am not alone.

Your OP has an air that everyone else is wrong for not "caring like you do"; these thoughts tell us more about you than the people in Japan.

Every time I see something on the news that is bad I get chest pains and have nightmares: 911,
Haiti earth quake, Chilli earth quake, New Zealand earth quake, birds/ fish/ whales dying, the BP oil disaster in the gulf, Hurricane Katrina, world poverty/hunger, The swine flu/bird flu, Aids, Nuclear melt downs, jobless
economy, etc... There seems to be no end to the misery. There are good things that happen here on Earth too, but not as often in proportion. Crying doesn't help, praying for everyone to help one another and leading by any positive example is better. Donations of used clothing/ canned goods to charities mught be a small start.
Take care of those around you in your daily life, random acts of kindness, picking up the garbage floating around the environment. We all can contribute something in our daily life.

watching Japan's disaster is like watching a Hollywood movie.
Even though I know it's real..and people are really dying, I feel for them but not to the extent of crying.
The media and the internets have made me a little "numb"

I'll watch a animal abuse story...or a story about a special needs kid getting a touchdown....that will get me a little teared up.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


I am glad I could trigger such a deep insight! You've got me thinking now !

Most of what you said was very comprehensible to me, enlightening even. Perhaps you could elaborate slightly on this point though

When we consider individuated consciousness existing in light of ALL consciousness it is truly a wonder. It needs to be nurtured and protected so as to not just flow right back into the All before it can find its own strength.

What is the ALL consciousness? I understood your use of it as a babies perception, but it seems its meaning slightly changed in the second paragraph?



but more importantly!

I think that we have two strands of development working at the same time. The development of the individual and the development of the whole of humanity. I think these two trajectories are converging.

Simply brilliant.

For the sake of understanding what I am about to say ( I believe it is big) let us presume (for a moment) that the collective human experience is eternal, that we are the only things that will outlast time and space.

Therefore, we are the only things real.

(this is not detrimental to understanding, though it will advocate you well)

but I digress..

Just as reality has two strands of development (society and the individual, just as you said) so does the actual experience (human mind) have two strands of development (analytical symbols like words and emotional experience)

The current state of the society of the world is against itself (secularism, separation, SPLIT)

The current state of the mind is against itself as well (analytical symbols against emotional perception, secular, SPLIT)

we have been told you must value one or the other, how false this is...

These are direct parallels of each other!

ONENESS (or enlightenment) comes from the left brains analytical and emotional process' coming together as one, not condemning each other but serving each other, working together without condemnation.

ONENESS of the world comes together in the same fashion...



The key to all of this is empathy, it is the root in which all that is unifying stems.

As individuals within the society, we must have empathy in as many ways and forms as you can, for it can only do you good, unless your mind is against itself, which would then perceive empathy as a threat.

This is a JOKE because the threat you perceive is itself BASED IN EMOTION!!!!

Actually we are being pushed in two directions. To progress or to regress. The road to progress for our race is empathy.

You have got it blood. Empathy is the path of unity, the path of life ( you are life)

to understand how detrimental this is...

I feel we have gone past the point of regression, it is progression or destruction.

Our knowledge (analytically based) of this world has developed mechanisms that can destroy the earth itself.

We lack the wisdom (using both sides) to know how to use our knowledge.

I see this simply as a step in evolution.

See, I believe we ARE emotion.

That analytical process' are just a way for you to be connected and vent yourself through symbols and mind games (not all mind games are bad, only the ones where someones loses') in order to loop it back and see yourself: experience, life, reality.

Unity or Separation

literally

Life or Death

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by westcoast

 

Unfortunately no. I have neither cried nor felt anything besides seeing the cars outrun the wave. That's the only time I felt sad. I can honestly say I don't feel may emotions to begin with, and this has not changed that.

I still care. But I just don't feel emotion to these things besides when i physically see people obviously about to die.

I starred your post because it's not pretty but it's honest. I can be like you at times in my reactions and I do not know why. I'm all over the map as far as my reactions are concerned. On anti depressants I was almost sociopathically disengaged from empathy. I empathize now with anyone who feels numb or lacking in emotions in situations others expect or even demand emotional responses from them. I have a feeling if you are ever put in a situation where you have to help someone you will be extraordinary in your response. The ability to care is sufficient to guide action. You don't need to be a total empath to do the right thing.

I have come through for people in times of crisis and inwardly felt absolutely nothing. At the time I in my life when I was most there for my parents as they fought cancer, I was as devoid of emotion or empathy as could be, though I was caring and compassionate in action. I did not question or beat myself up over it. I got us all through. And then about a month or two later emotions broke through and I was so glad they didn't do that when it was time to act or I would have been utterly useless.

i thought i was going to be able to hold it in and "keep a stiff upper lip"

a NPR story made me lose it though
was listening yesterday to a reporter in Japan, and he had two women who where longtime friends just see each other for the first time since the disaster, both where so overjoyed that their friend had made it through the disaster and they had found each other once again. that for some reason really choked me up, was listening as i drove down the street and had to pull over because i could no longer see for the tears.

Originally posted by 1ifbyland2ifbydebitcard
Your OP has an air that everyone else is wrong for not "caring like you do"; these thoughts tell us more about you than the people in Japan.

edit on 16-3-2011 by 1ifbyland2ifbydebitcard because: (no reason given)

Okay. Then what does it tell you?

It's not a matter of I am right and they are wrong. It is a matter that I am sad that it appears to me that people don't care or want to 'deal' with the emotions of caring for anyone else but themselves.

Am I selfish? I would be a liar if I said I wasn't. I am human. Am I perfect? Extremely far from it and I know I never will be close. I'm not trying to judge anyone, I just wish that our society didn't encourage distancing ourselves ourselves from what really matters.

I have also worked as a support officer. I know for a fact that just because you don't acknowledge the pain or scene that you witnessed doesn't mean it didn't affect you. If we don't acknowledge these things and process the emotions in a normal, healthy way it will have a negative impact on us one or another...eventually, in ways we wouldn't even think.

I'm sorry if I came across as arrogant or whatever...it wasn't my intent.

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain


you made the statement "On anti depressants I was almost sociopathically disengaged from empathy. "

wow that hit home, i have been on MANY different types of anti depressants and oddly enough i felt the same exact way. i told my wife once that while i was on those damn pills, i could have watched her, my children, my family murdered and been sad but not shed a tear. those things are evil!!!
i will never take em again, ever!
whats the point of being happy if you lose your humanity in the process?

Yes, I do cry. I watch the people of Japan with confusion on their faces...their loss, their fears, the unknowing, the bewilderment, their devistation. It's like "how/where do we go from here" "How can we re-start after this" "How do we even begin". "Do I stay, or do I go with the radiation levels threatening our health, our food supply, our water water supply, our oceans, our children".

It's very heart-breaking. Even the video of the dog watching over his injured friend had that same look on his face...lost, where is my family, where do I go, who will take care of me, where is my supper?

We all should be concerned. The very same incident can happen here in the US. It could only be "a matter of time" In the end, who is going to win...Mother Nature or Man.

I know where my bets are...and it isn't man.

reply to post by CaDreamer


A cyber hug to you. You know, then, what I went through. I am not sorry to have been on them, though. Before, I was too empathetic to the point I could barely function and bad news like the stuff I was reading about what was happening to the women and children in the various conflict torn regions of Africa would play over and over again in my head like an carnage video on endless loop. I was like this most of my adult life over all bad news, in fact, and it was going to ruin me.

I was heavily involved in animal rescue at one time so you can imagine the basket case I could be in face of an animal cruelty case. Being on a serotonin reuptake inhibitor freed me from that long enough to show me what it was like to not live with horror movies playing in my head constantly. Unfortunately over time I lost all ability to feel or care. I know exactly what you meant in your post. Also there was the lemming like inexplicable compulsion to want to kill myself to contend with. I wasn't even sad or depressed...I just wanted to kill myself sort of out of compulsion. Fortunately I understood it was a side effect and not a true wish. I informed my doc and devised a wean- off schedule.

I would never discourage anyone from taking their meds but i would definitely warn them to work with a vigilant doctor and be aware of potential side effects. Work with a good therapist to learn how to properly process emotions is probably also a wise idea. Wish I'd done that. But at least I did learn it is possible to retrain the mind to process bad news in a more constructive manner.

Hi Westcoast,
Yes, you have been talking about bad feelings lately. I shed a tear or two for the Japanese but I have to ask why would they build nukes on a fault line? Is it man's arrogance thinking they can outbuild Mother Nature? That right now is my question. Where is the respect for the land you live upon?

I am impressed with your caring for this earth and the land and more impressed by your experience you had as a child watching your world explode. You have worked tirelessly for this cause and for those around you. You are certainly not alone.

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain

yup my doctor once told me that for a many of folks that take them it isn't a lifetime thing. taking the pills where to help me to learn positive behavior patterns and how to identify healthy vs unhealthy emotions. she was right in my case, yeah i still suffer but now it isn't overwhelming nor is a constant thing. i learned how to adjust my environment to help me to get out of those mental traps. some do need them and as you said i do not encourage anyone on them to stop. if you have bad or unproductive feelings while on antidepressants talk to your doctor!!!

cheers and good luck

reply to post by wrathchild


That's unfortunate that you don't know the difference between a Hollywood movie and reality. Reallly? You can watch the news and become numb to it because it's the "News?" Perhaps so, and that I can see happening to people. It's easier to watch that stuff and think, "Oh, well it's on TV so how real can it really be?" And sometimes it just feels better to turn it off.

I know, man...

I used to have a Soul...From Empathy to Apathy...
I'm the useless by-product of soulless meat...

reply to post by queenofsheba

Read my post again.. I said it was "like watching a movie"....I also said I knew it was real.

Making a comment about how society in general sees so much on television and online that it is getting difficult to get emotional anymore...

I know the difference.

reply to post by wrathchild


Like watching a movie and we become numb to it...we need to try not to. The news sort of becomes our reality after a while.

reply to post by LoveSoldier

I am glad I could trigger such a deep insight! You've got me thinking now !

Most of what you said was very comprehensible to me, enlightening even. Perhaps you could elaborate slightly on this point though


When we consider individuated consciousness existing in light of ALL consciousness it is truly a wonder. It needs to be nurtured and protected so as to not just flow right back into the All before it can find its own strength.



What is the ALL consciousness? I understood your use of it as a babies perception, but it seems its meaning slightly changed in the second paragraph?

Circuitous R Me.

Let's see here.... More context. I'm essentially Platonic in my grasp of things. I understand reality as we know it as being within a greater reality which Plato called the world of forms. I do not think that we so much invent things or create art, as we do find things, pull them together and make them manifest, from the field of potentiality.

A perfect example is mathematics. There are two schools of thought on the nature of math. One is that it is all just a mental construct, which within the scope of all possibilities, we ourselves invent to help facilitate our manipulation of our world. The other school understands math to be inherent to existence, all its laws and rules and relationships are essential and co-existent with reality itself. Hence we do not make up 2+2=4 just to help us count but that 2+2=4 is pre-existent to our awareness of it.

So too, do I understand consciousness. That is, consciousness is not solely a construct of the human mind. Consciousness Is.

So I understand Consciousness is alpha. First cause unto itself. We can call this God. My fingers are getting tired and God is easier to spell over and over and over.

My sense as written in that post is seen easily by an example of an ocean. How do we distinguish one drop of water within the ocean while it is still in the ocean. The ocean being God and the drop being any of us. Not to mention 6,000,000,000 drops. How do those drops find individuation while remaining a part of the whole. I don't know, Soldier. But I do believe that we do have six billion or is it eight now, expressions of consciousness alive on the planet now. From the one to the many.

The only way I can understand any of this at all is by understanding early childhood development. Somehow it fits for me but there is that very fuzzy relationship between the one and the many. For now, at least I just let that lie with in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

As your reply unscrolled to my reading I was glad that I made that attempt to communicate some of my thoughts with you. I find that we are indeed if not on the same page at least in the same book.

But now, I have stretched this as far as I can for the time being. I have turned on my tube and am being drawn to the onslaught on American freedom taking place in Michigan, well hidden behind the scenes of Japan and Wisconsin.

I have friended you and we can talk some more when you like. I hope.

yours

Your posting was beautiful. I too have cried.

Originally posted by westcoast
Okay. Then what does it tell you?

It's not a matter of I am right and they are wrong. It is a matter that I am sad that it appears to me that people don't care or want to 'deal' with the emotions of caring for anyone else but themselves.

Am I selfish? I would be a liar if I said I wasn't. I am human. Am I perfect? Extremely far from it and I know I never will be close. I'm not trying to judge anyone, I just wish that our society didn't encourage distancing ourselves ourselves from what really matters.

I have also worked as a support officer. I know for a fact that just because you don't acknowledge the pain or scene that you witnessed doesn't mean it didn't affect you. If we don't acknowledge these things and process the emotions in a normal, healthy way it will have a negative impact on us one or another...eventually, in ways we wouldn't even think.

I'm sorry if I came across as arrogant or whatever...it wasn't my intent.

Talk about me babe, if you must
Throw on the dirt, pile on the dust
I'd do the same thing if I could
You know what they say, they say it's all good
It's all good

Big politician telling lies
Restaurant kitchen, all full of flies
Don't make a bit of difference, don't see why it should
But it's all right, 'cause it's all good
It's all good

People in the country, people on the land
Some of them so sick, they can hardly stand
Everybody would move away, if they could
It's hard to believe but it's all good
It's all good

The widow's cry, the orphan's plea
Everywhere you look, there's more misery
Come along with me, babe, I wish you would
You know what I'm sayin', it's all good
It's all good

Cold-blooded killer, stalking the town
Cop cars blinking, something bad going down
Buildings are crumbling in the neighborhood
But there's nothing to worry about, 'cause it's all good
It's all good

I'll pluck off your beard and blow it in your face
This time tomorrow I'll be rolling in your place
I wouldn't change a thing even if I could
You know what they say, they say it's all good
It's all good



Dylan

Yes Hon, I do very much care, and I can relate to you to putting a facebook message about how I felt with everything that is going on around us. You know why, cause I was utterly disgusted with the comments of people talking about their hairdo that day, or how they are so bored right now, or what they are making for dinner, I could not believe, a ONE hardly, of any of my FB friends had anything to say. I have felt sick this last week, even before the Quake, I felt drained, super drained of energy, and when I finally turned on my tv and saw the tsunami, i felt dizzy and sick, and yes, I too have actually cried even though I dont know a one person there. I have been feeling like something was going to happen, like just Ive been waiting to hear terrible news for about 7 or so months now. My good freinds have been the only ones to listen and I dared not to mention anything here for fear that I would be eaten alive especially after my last thread. BTW Im here in washington on the pacific northwest coast.
\
PS, Ive also been a little suspicious on the like ten different stories we keep hearing about the seriousness of the radiation from the media, they are litterally telling me something different every 5 minutes depending on who is opening their trap at that particular time.
Peace, Marriah