Empathy Is The Enemy

Empathy is killing me.

We watch a lot of TV,  keeping an eye on the coronavirus. The United States is up around 15,000 deaths. Can you fucking imagine that, comprehend it or absorb it? 15,000 people have died in a very short time. The mind cannot grasp that.

Everybody's life has been radically altered. You leave the house at your own peril. Some have the option not to, some do not.

Think about that. How frightening must it be to have to leave the house because you need the money and you work an "essential" job. Or you don't have the option to work at home or the tools to work at home. Or the type of job that allows you to work at home.

You have no choice. But you know you are putting your life in danger. That says so much about the desperate little lives that we live.

When you are working under normal circumstances you have no dignity. Pizza once a month is the highlight of your social existence. And when the world implodes you have to risk your life for a paycheck.

What if your employer lays you off? The unemployment system is overwhelmed and not functioning efficiently. But you can't wait. You need money NOW. What do you do?

Millions of people are going to suffer financially because our society is so cold and unforgiving.

AND IT IS NOT THESE PEOPLES' FAULT. What kind of country do we live in?

Your brain is assaulted by all kinds of bizarre new realities.

Makeshift morgues. Are you fucking kidding me? Storing bodies in tents. Storing bodies in refrigerated trucks. Morgues are overwhelmed, running out of supplies, gurneys etc. New York is considering temporary grave sites to stash bodies until they are in a position to give them proper burials.

This is a Stephen King novel. Not reality.

Only it is reality. How can this be? It happened in a heartbeat.

Healthcare workers are dying. People that walk into the fire every day to take care of others being cut down for their selflessness.

This is so fucked up.

All of that destroys my brain. But it is even worse.

Videos of healthcare workers, exhausted, crying in their car or at home at the end of a shift describing the nightmare they have just witnessed. Worse than yesterday, not as bad as tomorrow will be.

How do these people get through this? How do they function efficiently, considering the enormity of what they are responsible for? Exhausted, afraid, overwhelmed, insufficiently protected. Tell me they will not experience long lasting psychological effects from what they are dealing with every day.

We are approaching the point (if we are not already there) of deciding who lives and who dies. This 83 year old guy ain't gonna make it, so let him die. Let's treat the 61 year old.

You want to be the one in that position?

People standing outside nursing home windows celebrating birthdays of loved ones through the glass. Miming touching hands.

How cold and unsatisfying that must be. How heartbreaking for all involved. Imagine the elderly person on the inside, afraid of contracting the virus in an environment that practically ensures a death sentence, wanting the hugs of loved ones, needing the hugs of loved ones more than ever before.

Getting cold glass instead.

People with relatives who are dying, relatives they have to say goodbye to through a video monitor. A fucking video monitor. That is horrible, impersonal, fucking emotional torture. It should not be part of the human experience. Ever under any circumstance. Yet it is.

People dying with no human contact other than the people who are caring for them. Strangers. Well intentioned and caring but not family. Horrifying.

Many nights I get tears in my eyes as I watch these scenes or hear about them. Sometimes if I am eating supper (as I say it it seems so wrong to be eating in the comfort of my home as people die) my stomach clenches up. I have to stop eating for a moment.

Empathy is killing me. But that is who I am. Other peoples' suffering bothers me. Always has.

I am seeing suffering every day on a global scale and it is more than my mind and my heart can handle.

Where is this leading? What will life be like on the other side. It will not be normal. It may never again be normal as we defined it before the pandemic.

Life works this way. Every once in a while it rocks you and you gotta deal with it. Deal with it or withdraw, give up, check out.

This time it is on a massive scale and everybody has to deal with it at once.

Protect yourself as best you can.