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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/29/2009 5:18:07 PM | The latest big news stories have gotten me to thinking. There have been tragedies in the news throughout our lives, but they seem to affect me more as I get older. The cruelties that one human does to others is mind boggling, at times. I find myself watching the news of Jaycee Dugard finally being set free, with her chilren, and I stare at the TV with tears running down my cheeks. It was the same during the Kaylee Anthony ordeal. Any story where people are hurting others or animals just brings me to tears.
I was a respiratory therapist for 30 years. I've seen every horror one person can do to another, live an up close. I was able to work without it affecting how I did my job. You get use to the pain, the blood and the dying. But now, as I've gotten older and no longer work in an Emergency Room, it seems much more difficult to deal with this behavior. How can someone hurt or kill a child? How can someone be so cruel to animals and live with themselves?
Do we become more sensitive as we get older and are facing our own mortality or am I alone in this feeling? I've found there are some movies and TV shows I cannot even watch due to the violence they contain and how upsetting it is to see. Am I the only one who has become overwhelmed by the violence and cruelty of the world today? | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/29/2009 6:01:04 PM | FF you have a valid and current point.
I think you have asked a number of questions, each with a number of answers.
1. I think that overall, there is not more violence in the world today, as opposed to full history.
2. I think that on an individual basis in most of the western world, violence has increased a great deal.
I explain those two statements in this way...
I believe the world has always been a hard, cruel, killing, evil place, except for brief periods of specific history. I think that during the Victorian era and the proceeding 50-75 years, individuals in the western world were trained and cultured to present more civil, humane and formal virtues, so most people were less cruel and more gentle and genteel; while armies went out to conquer and cruelty stayed mostly on the battlefield and women stayed at home learning to be proper and obedient.
As the effect of that era finally eroded, all societies that were affected by it (and who wasn't?), have gradually gone back to being cruel, crude and bloody, which has most always been mans nature. Women for most of history were always right there with the men. But we, being born during the more gentle cycle left by the Victorian Era, are now seeing the world as a cruel place and are not used to the horror and violence. When our generation dies it is likely that the gentler time will be totally forgotten. We have lived through a unique and rare time.
3. I also think that when we are young we are prepared by nature to deal with the harshness.
4. I do think that as we age we are more sensitive to cruelty and inequalities and we try to teach and temper the younger generation. After all, that is how we were programmed to be by nature, but this generation hates age and wisdom and doesn't trust it because we who are aging do not trust the current age. So history has caused us more of a generation gap than we would have normally had, had we not been from a gentler age.
That is what I think. It is sad, but we are stuck with it.
SS | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/29/2009 7:01:39 PM | i've always had this horrid inability to learn of cruelty without having it get stuck in my mind. for this reason, among others, i haven't owned a tv in about 6 years. but i still hear about people committing atrocities. and it still gnaws away at me.
so, recently, i began to imagine myself as having unlimited resources so that i could search out those responsible and do the same to them as they've done to others (human or animal). i also got the idea to write a series of novels about it. my heroine simply would travel the world avenging those injured. that's how i deal with it now. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/29/2009 7:22:31 PM | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I can so relate to your heroine. I, too, think that the monsters who perpetrate these atrocities should have done to them what they do to their victims. Perps should forfeit their rights when they take away the rights of their victims.
Let me know when the first book comes out and I want an autographed copy! | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/29/2009 7:35:18 PM | FF, excellent post. I, myself, often feel guilty for feeling sorry for myself, with all the atrocities going on in the world. Really, I am a bleeding heart, sometimes to my own demise. However, I think the really smart person, the really conscience person, is smart enough to look at the outside world before engaging in self pity. And if they are not, well they are not all that conscience or smart or most importantly empathetic.
While I am a pull them up by your bootstraps kinda girl, I still feel deeply for the people who are victims of circumstance and sometimes I weep as I see the news, but it makes me feel fortunate for the blessings in my life.
And it makes me feel even more grateful to have been able to over my own hardships in life and I pray that everyone has that strength.
I do believe, what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger. For those true victims, I wish them strength and for myself, I realize how lucky I am. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/29/2009 7:53:38 PM | I don't think my sensitivities have changed but I am more aware of the suffering in the world.
I suppose this is down to better communcation and instead of being in full broadcast mode (before thirty typically) I find now that I do tend to be switched more to receive mode , So i guess in that sense our sensitivites do increase as we become more reflective the older we get. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/29/2009 7:54:45 PM | | As a a middle age non-traditional student, I remember leaving a college classroom because the professor wanted the students to watch "The Handmaiden's Tale". My explanation was that I had been around long enough to know that humans can be extremely cruel to others. I did not have the patience to spend a couple of hours wallowing through that movie, another hour or more discussing it, several more analyzing and writing. I asked for an alternate assignment and completed it. I have little patience for those who cause suffering or find the suffering of others fascinating. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/29/2009 7:59:37 PM | Interesting question.
On one hand, I am more aware that there is suffering and that people can be cruel.
On the other hand, I'm no longer shocked when I hear of cruelty perpetrated by one human against another. I am resigned to the fact that humans suck azz. I talk about it to younger people, and they've never heard of such things, and seeing their shock reminds me to be shocked.
I guess rather than more sensitive, I've become inured to the sickness that is humans. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/30/2009 1:50:55 AM | For myself, nothing fazes me anymore. It's not that I'm desensitized to things, but what people do, simply doesn't surprise me. People are a sick, sick lot.
As far as sensitivity, I'd say I am more empathetic to others situations due to the things I've gone through in my own life. You can make the choice of being bitter and thinking "why me?" when bad things happen to you or you can look at what others are going through, relate it to your own experiences - and be there for friends, family, acquaintances, etc. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/30/2009 4:45:31 AM | OP, interesting topic. No, I personally haven't become any more sensitive to suffering in the world as a result of getting older. Nor have I become any less sensitive to it. From the time in my childhood when I found a screaming baby rabbit in the hedges who'd been skinned alive, with ants crawling and biting into its raw flesh -- I decided to kill it and cried while I did it -- to the time in high school when I first saw photographs of emaciated human corpses hanging from meathooks in Nazi Germany, I gathered more experiences and gained more and more awareness of pain and suffering in this world.
You stated that you witnessed a lot of suffering in your hospital career. The knowledge that you were actively engaged in trying to help those who suffered must have been of some comfort to you emotionally. And you would've had to 'stuff' some of your emotions just to be able to function on the emergency medical team. Everybody else in that environment was having to do the same thing, too, so you had a kind of natural 'support group' to share the terrible experiences. You played a powerful and active part in addressing the problems at hand - and you could take pride in that, despite the losses.
I believe that to be moral people must strive to alleviate suffering. We will never succeed in eradicating it. But if we try to help where we can and make effort to teach the next generation compassion and mercy, it's the best we can do. Our emotional sensitivities to pain and injustice are beside the point, as I see it. Our moral duty is to try to improve the situation if we can. If we are powerless to bring about change (for whatever reason) yet feel overwhelmed and unable to cope with our emotions, well, therapy and/or medication may help. (Not being facetious.)
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@ msg. 2: With all due respect, I suspect you may have had a sheltered youth or perhaps read a few too many romance novels. Your view of history strikes me as limited and odd. There are lots of Golden Age myths but the Golden Age never really existed. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/30/2009 8:30:59 AM | Where4, what a thought provoking response. Really made me think. I believe I do feel that, since I'm no longer able to help those in need as I once was, maybe the suffering bothers me more. This is not to say that it didn't bother me when young. It most definitely did. My mother use to say "You'd cry at card tricks". But, after reading your post, I do believe that knowing I was helping people and literally saving lives, gave me comfort and made me feel, in my own small way, I was making a difference for the better.
I, too, have always been aware of, and empathetic to, the suffering in the world. Maybe, because I'm no longer able to help alleviate it in some, I just feel it more deeply. Yes, my career gave me tremendous satisfaction and I greatly miss it. I'd still be doing it, if I was physically able.
Thank you for wonderful post. It's given my serious food for thought.
Thank you to all who have posted. It's good to know how others feel also. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/30/2009 7:37:36 PM | You know a few years ago they polled people under 30 or something as to what the most tragic even in human history was. An overwhelming percentage of them chose September 11th. Their history teachers should be labotomized.
I'd love to see a cruelty free humanity, but then again the promotion of suffering has always been an indulged industry. The fact a horrific crime on an individual in our own cities bothers many of us more than the rapes of hundreds of thousands of women in the Congo speaks of a long journey ahead of us.
We've always been all too selective in our contempt for cruelty. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/30/2009 8:32:34 PM | I've become nearly immune to the suffering of others as I have gotten over the idealism of my youth. It used to be that I was seriously distressed at what I considered to be uncaring indifference, and because of that I felt very much apart, as if my compassion was a freakish rarity. What changed my feeling was my own suffering. Before I had experienced any great pain, the thought of it was exaggerated way beyond how it actually feels. Once I found out that suffering is actually much less severe than I had supposed it to be, I came to regard it as something unpleasant but of much less consequence. I still prefer others to be happy and well, and will promote that whenever possible. I just don't borrow from their plight to writhe in disproportionate sympathy. I also became much more fatalistic when I realized that it is normal for people to respond to those in distress with contempt, which is done to defend against a moral obligation to help, and because by blaming the victim for the victim's situation it is possible to suppose yourself safe from a similar fate as long as you do not invite it, assuming as you do that the victim brought it on themselves. Lastly, the bulk of human suffering that I know of and that is chronic and widespread, namely, war, starvation and disease, is either caused deliberately or accepted as a cost of prosperity. There is no reason to fight a war in the sense that any goal you might have and that is worth an effort can be accomplished by means other than war. There is no actual reason that people starve in terms of the factual abundance of food; it is for political reasons that food is not equitably distributed. Disease is the least self-inflicted, but still, should there be a global habit of maximizing health care, many millions of people who now suffer could be either cured or at least made much more comfortable, as now is done for people with access to medical services.
I know I have lost some part of my soul in the bargain. It's how I have managed to keep my sanity, such as it is, as the years have gone by and taken with them the world I had been looking forward to having taken pride in helping to making better than when I first saw it. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/30/2009 8:58:26 PM | LOL well actually, Where4, I have never read a single romance novel, nor have I had a sheltered youth. Far from it. I do not even watch romantic movies because frankly I find them far too unrealistic and a bit too sickenly sweet. That man you saw on the meat hook could have easily been my relative. I had many there.
If you, or anyone else does not share my view, or perhaps even understand me, that is fine with me, but I think your comment is a little weird. I never mentioned Golden Age anything. I feel very strongly that it is a fact that people for a period surrounding the Victorian Era were more controlled and tried to be more proper on the outside, even if they felt differently inside. As well, I feel there are other times in history where there were more controlled attitudes in general. I think the few that existed were brief, but real. I think in general certain rulers from the beginning of history did bring a certain peaceful period to humanity, which was far reaching, for whatever reason.
You say with all due respect, but basically calling a person a nut case has no respect in it. You are not disagreeing, you are just overly judgemental. Exactly how much have you studied history, really? I think that last line on your profile describing yourself is quite accurate. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/31/2009 4:29:54 AM | As I have gotten older, I have realised that man has not evolved very far from his basic animal instincts or pagan ways... Modernization has made us lust after and idolize the latest electronic gadgetry, fashion or cars. Artists demanding ridiculous money and things for their performances or governments committing atrocities on people, allowing them to starve needlessly.
If we are to believe in the ten commandments and seven deadly sins - we haven't exactly advanced very far morally in the last few thousand years... Porn has become second nature, easier to access and more depraved, but it wouldn't be made if there wasn't a demand... Sex crimes will become more sadistic in future.
Guns, bombs etc. have become more destructive and deadly.
Lawyers have twisted the slightest of details, managing to put criminals back on the street and don't get me started on pschychiatrists... trying to understand these people and make them better...
The only good thing about this life is knowing I won't be around forever to keep on seeing how more sadistic man will get to hurt his fellow human beings. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/31/2009 4:42:28 AM | I guess it also has to do with our nerves, I feel as we age, maybe we can't really tolerate or better said endure some horrors we could when we were younger.
I know I loved animals, but now If I see an animal in a difficult situation of any kind I cant even look at it, i get so stressed and affected.
The other day I saw two grown pit bull dogs walking by a Kohl's store location. it was so hot and the two dogs had their tongues all the way to the floor. They were definitely thirsty and tired.
I couldn't do much but i stopped and talked to them from my car and tried to lead them to a place with less heat. The animals came to my car and looked at me, but I didnt have any water to give them.
I was stressed....I felt so bad I couldn't really help them. I thought of the dogs for 2-3 days .
Yes I feel the older we get, the more affected we get with people and even animal suffering.
I don't go as war as the world's suffering, because I have lots of local suffering to worry for.
I just hope that we all tried to help locally and maybe we can make a world with a bit less tragedy. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 8/31/2009 10:30:17 AM | My boss has a saying in her office, it reads along the lines of "the greatest sin is to do nothing, because you think you can only do a little".
As another poster said - I remember sitting in history class - crying over the pictures from WWII...while others where saying "oh that's so gross". So I understand being somewhat soft-hearted. I can't see someone cry without crying with them.
OP - see it as a blessing - that your heart wasn't hardened by the work you did, by the evil in the world, by what we can do to each other. I see that in myself, and count it as a blessing. I work at the local child welfare (abuse) office. Perhaps, as mentioned in a previous post - you now feel that you are not helping anymore, and that makes these things weigh heavier on you? | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 9/1/2009 7:40:28 AM | Ironically, I have gotten more sensitive to the suffering of others but at the same time, realize how little I can do to alleviate the suffering of the vast unfed, unwashed, ill, and abused.
On reason I gave up teaching children is because I couldn't take not being able to save the ones who needed saving. I teach adults now--they can save themselves, but it is VERY difficult to have a 27 year old woman collapse in my arms because her electricity was turned off and her ex husband wants full custody of the kids.
Sigh. | |
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wudger
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Joined: 12/20/2007
Msg: 22 | |
| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 9/1/2009 9:12:30 AM | no, I've always felt badly for those less fortunate, but I have become increasingly distressed by the hardening of American's towards the poor and disadvantaged. its a mark of our lessening as a society. greed, avarice, self-satisfaction, self-congratulation, a constant movement to using wealth as a measurement for a worthwhile life.
the meaning of America, as Time Magazine so cleverly put it. | |
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avpd
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Joined: 8/5/2009
Msg: 23 | |
| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 9/1/2009 11:30:36 AM |
I have become increasingly distressed by the hardening of American's towards the poor and disadvantaged. its a mark of our lessening as a society. greed, avarice, self-satisfaction, self-congratulation, a constant movement to using wealth as a measurement for a worthwhile life.
That kind of thing comes and goes. I'm old enough to remember Ronald Reagan taling about welfare queens. Then it shifted with bill Clinton's "I feel your pain" line. Right now I think we are un an upswing in compassion. Let's see how long it lasts. And me personally? I have had so many problems of my own that I can only worry about that and not anyone but my closest friends. The world will have to get by without me helping out. | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 9/1/2009 12:06:08 PM | One difference is we hear (and we often see) it all, and we are able to do so FAST, today. Whereas at one time people didn't even know what was going on in other parts of the world (many Americans , particularly the young, still don't  ....and I'm sure this happens in other countries as well but we're kind of notorious for being a bit 'insulated' from it all, unless buildings are literally falling on our own heads...).
Am I personally more sensitive to the suffering in the world? I think I am to a point. I keep abreast of current events as much as possible, but, in reality I am not an actual activist (despite my generally slightly left-of-center political views on most issues). I don't do much , besides occasionally make a token donation or what-have-you, to actually help. I admire those who do. Most of the time what I end up doing is just shaking my head and thinking the usual, What a disaster, or, What a terrible story this is....
Some of the gory details on some of these stories, frankly (like this Jaycee Duggard thing , I think her name is), IMO the media can be a bit vampirish about some of it. They could probably leave some of it out; I mean, it's pretty obvious to the imagination. We don't have to hear every lurid detail about the abductor's basement or garage or whatever it was filled with porno, sex toys, etc etc..... That's one area where they get it a bit wrong, or go a bit overboard, IMO. A bit TMI .... Too Much Information. Report the basic outline of the facts, with cases like that, and I feel that's plenty. What else is next? Actual crime scene photographs published and widely available, or ?? It makes the news-reading public into a mass of the equivalent of accident gapers.
And OP, not to sound callous, but I think to a very real extent we all need to harden ourselves to a certain extent to stories about man's inhumanity towards man, or beast for that matter. It has always been and will always be. Expect not much from our species, and then when we do better than that (which we often do) you're pleasantly surprised, instead of the vice-versa type of situation... The way I see it in regards to these kinds of criminal stories and such, I have enough personal battles to fight in life, personal losses and so forth. Therefore, we must kind of 'pick our battles' I think. To stay sane... | |
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| As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
Posted: 9/1/2009 1:16:49 PM |
As you've gotten older, are you more sensitive regarding suffering in the world?
No. I realized at a very young age that most people are in a position or have been given the means to mitigate the major problems in their lives. Whether it's simply to move where they live, vote differently, stand up and say something for themselves, or simply to stop walking to their deaths like cattle or lemmings and stand up for themselves. They choose not to change their circumstances and when bad things happen to them, everyone else is expected to drop everything and run to help them.
This practical global news feed of seemingly every negative event in the world has long ago reached a ridiculous pitch because it's immobilized what was once a productive, happy nation into a scared, withering, shell-shocked hulk that is STILL being asked to "Give till it hurts", even as our own infrastructure crumbles around us. Enough already! We have our own personal and local disasters and bad news to deal with - we don't need to know everyone else's. I'm amazed that people stupidly wonder why we seem to have one of the highest rates of depression globally - it's because we are so connected that we have to listen to or watch everyone else's problems, while our own go untreated.
If there was any doubt, there should be none now that we ARE the biggest debtor nation in the world, bar none. Yet, look at ALL of the nations of the world whose fortunes are now directly tied to the fortunes of our country. The collapse of our housing market caused a worldwide recession, after all. People want to know why everything is so expensive here, why all the prices are "jacked up"? It's because the collective profits or tax revenues seem to be propping up the rest of the world's economy as it is.
I'm not sure if the age of the person exposed to it all is as much a factor, as the sheer volume of mostly-irrelevent information for information's sake that we are forced to look at daily. Constant exposure to something has one of two usual effects - those exposed either become desensitized to it, or the overexposure itself becomes toxic. | |
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