Atrophy

There have always been hot-button issues, always been violence and war and injustice and, if our modern age is distinct in any respect, it is in our unprecedented access to news of these events. It is an interesting mental exercise to shift back and forth between responsible and philosophical perspectives on such issues, to get worked up about things like ISIS and Ferguson or to watch the next episode of Fargo. All just stories as far as the viewer is concerned, after all, but one sort brings with their consideration a sense of increased compassion, a strengthened belief in one's relatedness to others, while the other leaves cool these feelings and let's one reflect dispassionately on the relationships artistically portrayed.

Imagine your feelings, after all, if the racially-motivated execution of an unarmed youth, and subsequent orgy of police-militarization, turned out to be a big performance art piece; everyone broke into smiles, the dead came out from hiding with sheepish grins, and they all took a bow. "Wow, you guys really got into it, didn't you?"

Or imagine that the unlikely tale of a psychopath blundering into a dissatisfied insurance salesman, and all the horribly ironic death that ensued, turned out to be true, told you something real about the world you live in. A lone survivor shows up in the news with a face half-full of scar tissue and no arms to correct some minor point of artistic license, and a cold spot forms in your gut as you try to reconcile your feelings of amusement with all the actual pain and suffering that occurred.

It was a common issue in my youth to debate whether it was the news of a violent reality, or violent fiction, that was more to blame for an increasingly violent youth. I begin to suspect the most salient factor to be, rather, the increased specialization of interest in one or the other; stories of true violence build compassion, stories of false violence grant perspective on conflict in general, and if you have enough access to just one sort of story to fill your entertainment quota for the day, the benefits of the other become atrophied in you.

And so we grow divided: the apathetic addicts to the new Fall lineup, and the self-righteous nationalists living off of the 24-hour news cycle. Still just reading stories, all of us, but growing into different people simply for the assumptions with which we read.

I love being human so much <3 <3 <3