compassion fatigue

I think I have it. There’s just so much shit to be upset about in the world that it has gone beyond my ability to comprehend, digest and deal with. It’s this amorphous, intermingled mass in which individual issues are no longer identifiable, but instead have all been tossed into a hamper and shoved into a closet until such time as I have time to deal with it. And worse, I find myself asking ‘why should I care about this new issue, when there’s still this shit going on?’ It’s exacerbated by the 15-minute rule of media coverage, because I’m not over something and they’re already deep into something else.

I’ve become numb to new news about things that should upset me. I get far too much joy from the micro-scale these days, as the macro-scale is so overwhelming, I’ve simply shut it off, or I’d be in the depths of despair. Even reading Harper’s magazine sometimes seems like ‘too much knowledge’ for me, and that’s pretty pop these days.

I’ve wanted to ‘get into’ politics for a while. Mostly idly, in the ‘that would be interesting’, but not doing too much about it state, but now I ask myself. As a politician, it would seem to me that I would have to keep abreast of all these things, and have a well-informed opinion, and so on, and I just don’t know if I could do it. I think it might drive me insane. And of course, most politicians don’t, but then most politicians seem to really only care about their careers, not the issues, and that’s not the sort of politician I’d want to be. Which means I probably wouldn’t be a very good politician, really, so perhaps this is for the best.

4 Replies to “compassion fatigue”

  1. I think being in politics would be complete and utter hell. But I am a bad person and i have opted out of the entire process. I don’t even read, listen to or watch the news. I used to subscribe to The Guardian, but after 2 years of Disease, Pestilence, Plague, War, Famine, Torture, Murder, Mayhem, Disaster, Poverty, Corruption, Incompitence, Greed … well, you get the drift.

  2. I think being in politics would be complete and utter hell. But I am a bad person and i have opted out of the entire process. I don’t even read, listen to or watch the news. I used to subscribe to The Guardian, but after 2 years of Disease, Pestilence, Plague, War, Famine, Torture, Murder, Mayhem, Disaster, Poverty, Corruption, Incompitence, Greed … well, you get the drift.

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