Indifference
I hate how apathetic I’ve become in so few years. Nothing seems to phase me any longer. Take this Virginia Tech tragedy for example. A part of me feels like it’s a bit melodramatic even calling it a tragedy, even though it really is one. I read the story first on the BBC and my first thought was, “Oh…that sucks, but it was just 32 people.” I’ve become so desensitized to violence that hearing about 32 kids my age losing their lives because of some psycho barely bothers me at all. In fact, I originally thought the number was higher, closer to 38 or 39, but the fact is, it still didn’t bother me.
What did rub me the wrong way was the fact that I was so accustomed to the violence. I think ever since September 11th, I’ve never been able to see violence and hatred the same way. About a year or so after September 11th, there was a train explosion in Spain due to terrorists and I remember thinking, “Oh…only 200 people died…well, I’ll be sad once it gets past 3323.” Hearing about planes crashing taking the lives of 200 people or bombs exploding claiming another 20 or 30 seems like an everyday thing and I’m not even remotely shaken by it. That’s what scares me most. What lies in the future that will make September 11th look like an “Oh…well, that sucks” moment for me?
A part of me wonders if this is just my defense mechanism, not caring that is. Perhaps indifference is my way of handling things I see each week that are really too much for me to really handle. I keep hearing people equate present times to Gomorrah and the fall of the Roman Empire and such, but still, I don’t seem to care. Older adults around me act like the world has gone completely downhill since the 70s and 80s, but I don’t see it. People are still just as ignorant now as they were when I was a child. There are the twelve-year-old whores now, just like there were when I was in middle school and there are school shootings in places one wouldn’t expect now just as there were when I was younger. Nothing’s actually changed. The world is just as screwed up now as it was when I was born. I just think the internet has made that fact more apparent to a wider audience, and what’s disturbing about all of this is that I really don’t care.