Uzi's Ruminations 2/20 "Dead Koreans"

2/20

Why do people pretend to care about other people? Why does an event like the collapse of the Twin Towers evoke intense emotion, but the 65-year-old grandmother who tried to swallow but choked on a piece of pork loin get no recognition?

More specifically, why do I have to be regarded as such an asshole for realizing that it is perfectly OK to NOT care about anything except what and who you know?

This happened to me yesterday, a brief conversation with this Korean girl I work with: "Oh, I am so sad about the subway," she said (or something to that effect). (Referencing the recent subway disaster in S. Korea, her homeland.) "I don't care" was my reply. Because I don't care. At all. But she was upset because I didn't bullshit her and use tact. She shouldn't have said anything to me in the first place.

Here's the deal: I care more about accidentally clipping my dog's nail too short than I do about 200 dead Koreans. In fact, I would rather pick a person at random from the phonebook and kill them to preserve the life of my dog.

So I'm an asshole. But boy oh boy, do I care about my dogs.

We're all exposed to so much pain and suffering in the world by news reports that I think we build little walls as a defense mechanism, and only allow those things "in" that affect us directly.

If 200 people were to die in a fire in your town's movie theater you'd be more emotionally affected....perhaps you'd know some of them, or you would've seen them walking down the street, etc. By having a name/face behind the number of dead one is able to make a connection more intimately. The fact that 200 unknown strangers were killed halfway around the world makes it less personal, and therefore easier to dismiss.

You're not alone in these thoughts, Uzi.

I haven't built a wall...it is just there. I just don't care.

If 200 people from my town died in a fire, and not a friend or family member (or my animals) were among them, I still wouldn't care.

Poke-

I am with you. I thought I was the only one, at first I thought that I was just selfish or something, then I asked myself," if that happened to me would they care?" HELL NO! I am not cold enough to not care about children, just adults. Part of living is dying, you will die, I will die and the only thing that truly matters to me are my family and friends. Call it what you want...but..."THIS IS MY WORLD, YOU ARE JUST LIVING IN IT"!!!

-Minnow-

Maybe it is a "guy thing"? My husband is the same way too, he is like, "Well, people die everyday, so what is the big deal?".
From my perspective though, seeing a tragedy, I feel for the people who died, the people they left behind, their mothers, etc.
But, it irritates me to no end when I see people act just utterly devastated when celebrities die! Or even kill themselves because of it! Remember back when Princess Diana or even JFK jr. died, they were showing on the TV people crying and carrying on in the streets. Total emotional devastationover the death of someone they didn;'t even know. Get a life!

I don't believe a hierarchy of death-emotion is all that unusual. I think in most people the capacity for empathy sometimes can only be kick-started narcissistically.

But I'm like Scarlett, and it really sucks and drains empathizing left and right.

I don't even give a second thought to children dying. Not to say that I don't feel bad for the child who never got to grow up or the grieving parents. I do. Hell, I feel bad for ANYONE who dies. But I don't give it a second thought. I just don't care.

I am going to snuff myself.

What if Udai Hussein were to die in a castrassion scenario?

It's not the same Korean girl with the shitty pen is it?

Poor lass.

One thing for sure...NO DOG ROLL FOR YOU!

Yes, it is. But it is a pencil, Turi. Idiot.