(no subject)

[liptonrm_backup]

I've been listening to NPR all day. It's ubiquitiousness is almost calming in the face of all that I've been feeling today.


I don't like watching the news. I don't watch the 24 hr. news channels on cable, I don't read newspapers and I only listen to NPR as I drive into work in the morning. I appreciate how important the news is but there are so many things happening now, so many horrible things that make me want to curl up into a ball and never go out into the world ever again. Bombings in Iraq have become such a normal feature of every news program that I'm, sadly, almost inured to them. There's only so much pain I can feel for situations that are inherently tragic and for which I can do nearly nothing. It's so much easier to get caught up in the pettiness of my own life, to focus on what my Sims are doing or what I'm watching on TV or what the latest fanfic is rather then worry about how the world is going to shit.

Because it is. I don't think our great-grandparents could imagine living in a world so torn up by violence. It surrounds us, engulfs us, everywhere we turn people are hurting other people. And while there are still good people who work their hardest to improve the world more and more it seems as if the extreme voices are drowning out every other noise. It's no wonder that so many of us dream about the End Times, whether it be a Zombie Apocalypse or an Alien Invasion of the Rapture or whatever comes along that spur our fantasies. There is an underlying belief that the only way to make the world better is to simply let it be destroyed so that we can start over newer and better, somehow. I cam empathize with that emotion, there is something very appealing about the world going up in flames Independence Day-style and taking all the stupid people with it.

We all feel that life isn't going the way it should. We see the world around us and know that it should be a better place. People should be happy, they should have the chance to do what makes them happy and not live their lives in fear and doubt and drudgery. Just look at what we all fan over, be it Lord of the Rings or Band of Brothers or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or what have you. These are tales of groups of disparate people who have banded together to improve their worlds, to go forth and bring light to the darkness and hope to the hopeless. We all have that kernel of desire, that hope that we can make the world better, that the world can be made better and that it is not as it should be.

During the last presidential election here in the U.S. I tried to explain to my mother how many members of my generation feel, how we want a better world but feel powerless to effect it in any way. We understand that it takes power to get anything done and that the best intended efforts of good people are usually not enough. I went to college with a woman who graduated in social work and went back to her home in Western Michigan and within 2 years of working there she was completely burnt out. She didn't even work in Detroit or Flint or Grand Rapids or Saginaw, she worked in Ludington, a small city in western Michigan whose economy is primarily founded on farming and tourism and migrant labor. There's so much to be done and so little that I can do.

I've had NPR on all day. I haven't been able to turn it off or stop thinking about what has happened in London today. I pray for those who have been injured, for those who have lost loved ones and yet I know that London will survive. She has survived so much and she will survive this. I only hope that we as a world community can overcome the terror and despair that continues to plague us all, that we can rise above the pain and find the peace that waits at the end. There have to be better things ahead, there just have to be.

Comments

[hiyacynth.livejournal.com]

Well put, my friend. Thank you for posting.

[shirebound]

Just look at what we all fan over, be it Lord of the Rings or Band of Brothers or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or what have you. These are tales of groups of disparate people who have banded together to improve their worlds, to go forth and bring light to the darkness and hope to the hopeless. We all have that kernel of desire, that hope that we can make the world better, that the world can be made better and that it is not as it should be.

How perfect. Thank you.

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. I like to think of, for example, when we write to entertain our friends/strangers to allow them an escape from teh fear and drudgery or when we do our jobs in the world that make things better for others. That is improving our world and bringing light into the darkness, even if it's only for awhile and for a short distance.

[liptonrm.livejournal.com]

How beautiful and how absolutely true. We do what we can and we do it wonderfully. There are so many different kinds of light we can bring into the lives of others one by one by one. Fic and hugs and smiles and everything that we do.

I <3 fandom. =D

[liptonrm.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It's a truth that I've not only seen in the works of such giants as Tolkien or Lewis but also in the acts of people I've seen around me, like yourself.

[cunien.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this post. It means so much that the rest of the world is standing beside us in this, just as I'm sure it meant a lot to the US in september four years ago.

It's hard at times like this to see the good in the world, but I really think you have to. It's harder to find, because it doesn't make a big show of itself, but it is there. The moment we stop seeing it is the moment we give in.

I'm trying to be all strong and proudly British and patriotic. I want people to remember this as a day we were struck down but got back up again. The emergency services have been brilliant and everything was so orderly and organised.

There have to be better things ahead, there just have to be.

There will be. I know it. My parents were telling me that it may seem like this is going to be the way it goes from now on, but to remember there was a time when everyone thought the future would be nothing but non-stop IRA bombings.

*hugs* Seriously, I've never appreciated you guys quite as much as I do right now.
x.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I often try to tell myself that the world has always been torn up by violence -- it's just that now, we have 24-hour news to bring it right into our living rooms so it's ever-present. Nevertheless...something does seem to be going awfully wrong, doesn't it? And I don't just mean this thing in London, or Iraq, or the election, or what-have-you. It's everything. Religious people will tell you that we all need to turn back to God. Social activists will tell you that we need to become more involved or more generous. But like you, I find it all...hopeless. From Iraq to Africa to London to New York, what are you going to do? Send money? Write letters to your congressman? Recycle? Pray?

I don't think there are better things ahead.

as always...

[bookgrl.livejournal.com]

Your words inspire me.
*hugs*

[baylorsr.livejournal.com]

I've only read newspaper stories about the bombings, because it's just too much to be asked to listen to the talking heads drone on and on in endless horror and analysis far past our point to process it anymore. I used to keep Headline News on the television in the office lobby, but one day, tossed back and forth between reports of a beheading of a contractor in Iraq and the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, I turned it off and it's never been back on that station.

No generation before this has been asked to take in so much information, so much horror, so much tragedy, in such endless form on a daily basis through the mass media. You put it well when you say that we "want a better world but feel powerless to effect it in any way," and I have to wonder how much of that powerlessness comes from simply being overwhelmed by the world at large, now brought into our cars, our offices, our living rooms, our coffee shops -- try to think of someplace that doesn't have a television droning.

Maybe it's time to change the channel.