On Tom Petty, Nevada, and the Psychology of Belief and Empathy.
Tom Petty died the same weekend as several people in a mass shooting. And I only cried for one of those things. I cried for Tom Petty I did not cry about Nevada. Does that sicken you? Because it should. I hate my self for this, how dare I not feel bad for the hundreds of people who were injured by a senseless person with a machine gun. That is clearly the bigger tragedy. And yet I only seem to be capable of thinking about Tom...
While I was pondering this I remembered this saying I throw around a lot, "one death is a tragedy, a hundred is a statistic." I did not know any of the people who were hurt in Nevada but I do know Tom Petty. I know his music. I know he's one of the reasons why my parents got together. I know how his music changed me personally. But hundreds of people getting injured just is so big it feels impersonal. My puny monkey brain cannot comprehend it all but it can cling on to one person. Empathy is better at looking at one than the whole. I'm sure there's probably some sort of psychological axiom that addresses this but if it hasn't I wish to propose Nash's Empathy Curve Hypothesis.
If this hypothesis is true it would explain some groups of society such as 9/11 truthers, Holocaust deniers, and Climate Change 'Skeptics.' These events are on a really large scale and as a result they cannot comprehend that these events are even possible so rather than accept the idea that it happened they deny with complete insensitivity to those who suffer from the event but in their head it's justifiable. All this came to me while I was walking around campus on Monday. But even being able to intellectually justify this to myself it means nothing.
This is a reoccurring theme when I walk and think to myself.
But that's what depression and low self-esteem buy you. Intellectually I know what to do and why it's the good and right thing to do, but my mind just says "yeah but deep down inside you know you still don't wow you are such a terrible person and you should just stop feeling and jump off a cliff." And then my internal monologue retorts "shut the f#$& up Steve." (Yes I named my depression Steve. He's a total @$$hole.) But even though I get him to shut up I still believe at times he has a valid point. But then I remembered something.
There was a reason I mentioned the Holocaust earlier. I think it's super easy to pass it off as one giant statistical even that happened but that's not how I view it. About 10 years ago my mom took me to an Anti-Westboro protest. We held signs with a bunch of other people and stood opposite the Westboro Baptist Church people. And across the street from both of us was the holocaust museum. After they went into the museum and left the museum owners came out and thanked all of us and let us all in for free. Seeing the artifacts and the personal accounts and the stories all of a sudden this event became a whole lot more real for me. It engrained in me a respect and appreciation for the men and women who survived and sense of respect for the hundreds upon thousands of lives lost. Going there was a necessity at a young age if you want to feel empathy for the crowd you need to establish the ability at a young age. *
With this in mind I decided to read the stories of the people affected and all of a sudden I felt more connected to the victims and their families. I felt more connected to what happened. It made me realize that something has to be done to stop this from happening. I felt some closure. Now was I trying to make my self better and is this entirely selfish, absolutely. But you don't come to Nash's corner unless your looking for my personal view on things so it kinda came with the territory. I offer my most sincere condolences to all the lives lost last weekend, and to lives lost in the recent earthquakes in Mexico and the disaster in Puerto Rico. To the nation and to the world and to everybody recently struck with grief and disaster I think we need to remember something Tom told us to do.
-Nash
*Appendix 1:
There was another story similar to this that I couldn't fit in but I'll save it for another post. But it involves the peace museum in Hiroshima.
Appendix 2:
Okay, sorry I've been gone a while but I just got use to college. I'll be posting more frequently but don't expect this to still be a daily thing.
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