School massacre in Conneticut: Keep things in perspective

[Beth Andrea]

First off, my condolences to anyone who had someone injured or killed in this--or any--act of violence.

I want to mention a phenomenon I've noticed whenever a major tragedy happens...that of non-direct grieving and anger. I can understand people who are directly part of a situation, whether it's a shooting, a mugging, or a multi-plane attack (9/11), having very strong emotions, including crying, gnashing of teeth, anger, etc. That is normal, and expected, and indeed encouraged.

But, I have seen people who have no direct connection, not even an indirect connection, have severe emotional reactions as if they were personally involved. These people often have to call out of work, or share their anger/frustration with others (asked for or not), and generally act inappropriately, given the situation and their distance from it.

Please don't hurt yourself while observing tragedies. By "hurt" I mean causing yourself grief beyond what is appropriate...let's turn this around a bit, just so you can see how foolish deep emotional commitment can be:

You're reading the paper, and you notice that the paper has decided to publish the births from Timbuktu each day, and the marriages as well.

You don't know anyone from Timbuktu, you don't know anyone who knows anyone from there, yet you decide it is *important* to have a celebration for each birth and each marriage. You can't afford it all yourself, so you set up funds and advertisements to encourage people to come by, donate, and partake in the festivities.

I would hope you can see that emotional outbursts (whether grieving, or celebrating) based on far-away events is not useful, nor particularly wanted.

Yes, I also understand the need to grieve; no one wants to see anyone killed, let alone 5 year olds. But if one breaks down with this, when people you don't even know are killed...what sort of response will you have if the unthinkable happens? If someone close to you were to be killed? Are you going to have the same response? Or perhaps, an even lower response?

It seems to me that the level of emotion displayed by people (not pointing fingers here, I've noticed this for the past 10+ years) is extraordinarily dramatic, and if it interferes with one's life significantly (everything from buying more Tums, to missing work), then perhaps one should consider developing a new perspective...does your grieving help the victims directly? Or is it more for you that you grieve?

This thread is not meant to bash anyone, I simply do not understand the intensity of the emotion of sympathetic grieving from a long distance. This thread is also not about guns or gun control.

Peace, *hugs*, and kindness.

[Jamie D]

Read the passage from the John Donne meditation, called, "For whom the bell tolls."

You can look it up, or you can read the entire meditation in my blog.

"Every man's death diminishes me, for I am a part of mankind."

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

The Connecticut shooting hit me hard, as I am not that far away from the Clackamas Town Center where a shooting also just happened.

Yes it stirs up emotions in me.  And I feel so hopeless in that there is not much I can do to help all those effected.

[peky]

Read the passage from the John Donne meditation, called, "For whom the bell tolls."

You can look it up, or you can read the entire meditation in my blog.

"Every man's death diminishes me, for I am a part of mankind."

Between 18,000 to 30,000 children die of starvation every day. It does not makes the 6 O'Clock news...Why?

[Beth Andrea]

Read the passage from the John Donne meditation, called, "For whom the bell tolls."

You can look it up, or you can read the entire meditation in my blog.

"Every man's death diminishes me, for I am a part of mankind."

I have not read this "meditation."

As for diminishing *me*, no, if someone dies--or perhaps, six million--it does not diminish me.

I do sympathize with the sorrow and grief of those directly involved, but it doesn't materially affect my day, the way I go shopping for food, traffic patterns, etc.

I actually have more concern when I see homeless people on the street, shuffling around and trying to stay warm in the face of oncoming winter, than anything else that I am presented with on the news. Local hardships trump long distance ones; since I only have a limited amount of "caring", locals get it.

[Edge]

Between 18,000 to 30,000 children die of starvation every day. It does not makes the 6 O'Clock news...Why?

Because it doesn't sell. You'll notice that when things like this happen, they tend to focus more on the perpetrator than the victims and the survivors as well.
Personally, I think that while it is important to keep some perspective, empathy is ok as well. Plus, when these things happen, it tends to bring up thoughts of "what if this were to happen to my loved one(s)?" It's not likely, but imagining it still stirs up emotions.

[Flan]

Because it doesn't sell. You'll notice that when things like this happen, they tend to focus more on the perpetrator than the victims and the survivors as well.

Because nothing sells like the image of a dead body. The media is as much the cause as the effect. How else can a murderer get their 15 minuets (hours/days?) of fame?
http://boingboing.net/2012/12/15/roger-ebert-on-how-the-press-r.html

[Beth Andrea]

The media only reports what sells...and since we're the "buyers", it is important for us to NOT dwell 24/7 on what the media chooses to report.

Nevermind any copycat criminals out there, the media corporations know that if there's a LARGE audience (that's you and I, kiddies), they can charge more for advertising--maybe not "today", but next time ratings come around, their fees will go up or down depending on viewership.

The problem is when one station--say, NBC--decides to not cover tragedies 24/7, and the other channels do...where do the viewers GO? Do they, like responsible people, turn off their TVs? Well...apparently not. So, when the ratings come in, and it shows NBC lost a percentage of their viewers (and their ad rates have to go down, to bring in advertisers), their CEO will be fired, and the new guy/gal will...

...Resume showing tragedies 24/7 in full Technicolor Panavision.

And why? Because *people* have continued to watch--and demand--absolute full coverage of something that fundamentally is a local issue.

But, it is what it is. I just don't get what is so interesting about these kinds of things.

[Seb]

When I heard about the shooting, I sat down and I cried. I cried because I knew there were 18 more kids that wouldn't make it to Christmas. I don't know any of these children, I'm not from Connecticut, but for some reason it struck me so deep that I cried. I prayed all day for their families and all of those children affected. But it really made me sad. I've never experienced something like this, I was too young during 9/11 and I don't normally watch news. Something struck so hard because of the age of these children. I have such a deep love for children, I just broke down!

There are many worse problems out there, thinking about what happens in my father's country, when just last year many Muslims were slaughtered by Christians with machetes in their own homes, women and children, innocence taken away from them. Or about how many children starve on our streets every day. There are many things to be sad about. I have cried over these too. Hearing about the women of my heritage being raped every day, being forced into painful circumcision. So much bad happens in this world and sometimes it is overwhelming.

I think the fact that this is so close to Christmas, a time when no kid should be depressed, makes it hurt worse. People don't think of the thousands and thousands and thousands of children who die every day.

[Arch]

One of my high-school acquaintances shot up an elementary school when I was sixteen or seventeen, so that experience did have an effect on me. But I get upset about school shootings because I teach. Granted, my students are all legally adults, but most of them are in the 18-25 range. At one school, I rarely get students over 20.

Anytime I teach in a new classroom, I have to think about logistics: what floor it is on, whether it has windows, whether the door opens in or out, whether the door has windows, what we could use as a barricade if need be, that sort of thing. It is pretty frightening.

And I think about what I would do and whether I would be willing to put my life on the line to protect my students. As I said, it's different with adults, but I still find it chilling to think about my responsibility to them.

I am not an alarmist. I know that chances are pretty small that anything will happen at one of my schools or in one of my own classrooms. But if something does happen, I won't have time to think. I'll need to be ready. So I think about it every so often.

Anytime I see inhumanity, it affects me. But school shootings hit particularly close to home. So I turned off CNN and refused to watch it, and this is the first time in three days that I've even come close to reading about the shooting.