Exploding your emotional bandwidth

[unhappycamper]

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/04/16/exploding-your-emotional-bandwidth/



We are not so separate, or different. We just like to think we are.

Exploding your emotional bandwidth
SFGate
Friday Apr 19, 2013 6:28 AM PT

We are not built for this. We are not designed, at our core, to be able to absorb, at a glance and a click, a tweet and a ruthless video feed, all the ills and horrors of the world, all at once, all manner of chaos and destruction in a nonstop bloody flood over which we are powerless to influence and impotent to stop.

The Boston bombings have forced us, once again, to ask: Are we in an age of miracles or misery? Unhindered magic or cruel dystopia? Is it both? How can it possibly be both? This tech-enabled onslaught of violence and pain the likes of which our ancestors, even as recently as 50 years ago, never had to deal with and could not possibly imagine? It is not within our emotional capacity. Not without serious scarring, anyway.

As the images of blood and mayhem flooded the newswires on Monday, as the tragedy unfolded across a billion tiny screens in real time, as my Twitter feed lit up in seconds, instantly jammed with bizarre and disquieting images, frantic claims, uninformed hysteria and little Vine video clips of that one old man crumpling to the ground in a heap, we can only blink and shake, hold our collective head in our hands: “What the hell is this? What have we become?” And perhaps most importantly: “How can we possibly process it all? What can we do?”

The answer is almost always the same, but increasingly lost in the modern bedlam of technology: In times of violent, faraway tragedy, you do the only thing possible: You gather in, hold tight, and take care of those close to you. As feeble as it sounds, as meek as you feel, this is the only way. This is also the best way. To help. To be a part. To avoid shutting down, hardening, adding more suspicion and mistrust to the world.