I live in NYC. There's never a shortage of sad stories anywhere you go but in NYC, every sad story WILL end up on all of the news broadcasts. So, to say that New Yorkers are constantly reminded of the uglier side of life is not an exaggeration. You get used to it, living here... well, you get used to it or you become a part of it. The average person learns to tune it out after the initial horror hits them. It doesn't make us heartless, though it may seem like that to people on the outside.
Anyway, this isn't a commentary on New York or it's inhabitants. I'm trying to give people an idea of how I normally react when I hear bad news on the news. Lately though, it's become so much more than about what bad thing is happening in NY. Yes, there was a nugget of a NY tragedy in the news this morning having to do with a bus load of people being involved in an accident so terrible that, you only ever see that kind of thing in horror movies. However, that story was sandwiched between tons of horror stories outside of NY. That made me stop and think about the number of worldly tragedies and natural disasters we've seen in the past few years. That made me scared. The kind of scared that I'm not able to put in my back pocket like I normally do.
At first I thought, "The news is able to cover world events like never before so it only seems like things are worse now than ever." There may be some truth to that but the reality is that there is more going on on a global level than ever before. The world feels like it's becoming a combination of global natural disasters and an abundance of human atrocity. Every now and then, it's tempered by a survival stories of miners underground for months, but they are so few and far between. The real kicker here is, it's all our fault.
I guess that all sounds really cynical. The truth is, since the majority of our worldwide issues are our own fault, we can fix the problems if we try. I don't have all the answers, but I want to say this: Be better to one another. Be better to the earth. Be truly better to yourself. Live better and we'll start to set things straight in the world.
Maybe I'm just an idealist, but I'm tired of carrying my fears in my back pocket.
Matt
