I suppose the problem with living in a city like New York is that everything is compressed and forced at you through a fire hose. If your someone with a shred of empathy, there's no time to process what you see and experience because it comes at you hard, fast, and in a never-ending stream. I suppose that's how people become hardened and callous. They start out like you and over time grow overwhelmed and unable to process what's being thrown at them.
I don't see you changing like that, though. You don't seem like the sort of person who would grow a hard exterior and then let it sink in and consume you.
That's profound, what you just said. I suspect it takes one to know one. But what happens to the ones who can't grow an exoskeleton, even if they wanted to? I think that's what I'm waiting to see. What happens when you put a ladybug under that firehose?
Unless you've been successful at hiding it from me, this isn't your (normal?) kind of music. But it is what hit me when I saw the lede, and it is still there at the end. "Let The Broken Pieces Shine." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trbnYwaVvmY
It’s my darkest secret. “In public,” it reads as a passion for social justice. Which is true. But the truth I try much harder to keep hidden (because it can be so overwhelming) is my extreme and involuntary empathy. And it’s being put through a gauntlet here.
If I were a better person, I would want this quality, or at least not resist it so much. I’m not a better person. Just a person person. But it’s getting more acute, not less, and it’s really starting to worry me.
man....are you good. i just read that NJ is the most densely populated state. ny....florida are also on the list. i live in san diego; from san francisco/marin. today, i was told by a midwesterner that la is sooo crass and cold. LA cold? laughable, to me, but i understand what they were saying coming from one of the dozens of flyover states; those who move slowly and friendlily. when in actuality it is a sort of silent judgmental deceptive friendly. and you do know what happens when a ladybug winds up beneath a firehose. remember, you live in NYC, but...you also lived...i hope LIVED...in italy. thx so much for your wonderful words.
I don’t think I would recognize San Francisco at this point. And a friend of mine recently sent me a few gonzo-style videos of street after street in LA that had been boarded up or was head-high in trash. WTF is going on????
cities in general tolerate the ugliest of human behaviors. i am still haunted by photos of detroit or the blight india or of the bronx which if changed only means it simply relocated? in LA i did not see endless boarded up places but am sure they are there as LA is big and the homeless cap. of the USA. yet comparatively violent crime in la is 29 per 100 vs bronx 44. the US has a different cultural tolerance of everything; homelessness or addiction you simply do not see in germany or denmark or sweden or japan. yet...look at nigeria or india: 25 mil, 18 mil respectively. i do not buy the popular explanation: the lack of available affordable housing is the primary cause of homelessness exacerbated by the expiration of pandemic programs that protected tenants from eviction. imho our inadequate mental health and addiction help eclipse that. amis seem comfortable with shitting in their own bed. and...are we just more comfortable sharing our dregs? NY and london are nearly the same size however london's violent crime is higher than that of NY: 1.8 to 1.4. yet we seldom hear about that. nothing/no one stays no. 1 forever be it apple, juventus, sabretts, taylor swift, spaceX or...the USA. as rome grew, crime grew rampant, rulers became very corrupt and caesar the dictator focused on self protection vs the greater good. Trump, ays he'll be a dictator on day one. welcome to the fall of.....home.
Yes, I agree. It isn't mental illness and addiction that are causing these problems; it's the LACK of resources for mental illness and addiction that are causing these problems. We are always looking in the wrong direction on this issue, pointing fingers at the wrong people. These are the ones whose lives are out of their control, whereas we are perfectly able to allot money and support for them, but choose not to. The result? What we see in every major city across the globe, albeit some more than others.
Being in the Deep South of Italy where the culture is so torturously deformed by centuries of neglect, extreme poverty, and exploitation I have had many of these moments. They are different in nature, of course, the problems are so very different here. But I hear you on the “empathy as a curse” thing…I so often feel that way and wish it was a hose I could turn off once and a while. The only thing that works for me is meditation…it can open up a space where I can simply observe and not engage. It’s not a magic wand, but it can certainly help ❤️
The BEAUTIFUL thing about Italy is that such meditation is possible. I was sitting the other day, and not five minutes into it, a mental patient who frequents the neighborhood, screamed "FUCK!" right outside the window ;-)
I know you see the same things I am seeing and are having the same reaction. Like you, I wish I could turn it off. I do not see this extreme empathy as a virtue, however, since I am more than capable of its opposite.
On an unrelated note, how is Danielle? As you know, she hasn't spoken to me since I got vaccinated, but I do care and I hope she is well.
What a day in the life of empathy and observations of an ever growing problem, where light falls into the cracks of a dark and lonely existence. I’m with you, there’s a blight going on, all around us that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. I feel your humanity. ❤️
There was a homeless encampment right down the street that ran for a block in front of the mall. So they kicked them out and passed an ordinance. Went to a show at the Wiltern downtown, the area was dirty and unkempt. Hollywood has always been a freak show, but it too has sadly become a place where the City of Angels has completely dropped the ball on its citizenry. 🥲
There were (in 1958) eight million stories in the naked city. New York. But in any case that is a vast undercount in the vast megalopolises of the world. Down the road from our Italian frazione, a small city of sixteen thousand. So, there's another sixteen thousand stories there. Another 80 or so here in our village. What we don't have here is the Wagnerian siren opera which, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, rehearses heat upon a raw-edged nerve. Anyway, Stacey, the variable that separates you (at least until the day you find yourself on a park bench talking to a stranger about some horror, some dream, some persecution, some regret, some remembered love) is the transcendent power of writing, writing well. It keeps one sane.
We write to make sense of things, don't we, dear Vian? We try to give words to emotions that have no words, and even when we fail, we can delude ourselves into thinking we have "managed" something at the same moment we manage nothing.
As is true of many things, it's the effort, the attempt, that matters. It offers growth, but not always success in the strictest sense.
It works is all I know....the question of success or not is an irrelevancy on most days...and the days when it is relevant, it has the feel of pretense, like emerging from the underground where we live to mix with our fellow humans.
I suppose the problem with living in a city like New York is that everything is compressed and forced at you through a fire hose. If your someone with a shred of empathy, there's no time to process what you see and experience because it comes at you hard, fast, and in a never-ending stream. I suppose that's how people become hardened and callous. They start out like you and over time grow overwhelmed and unable to process what's being thrown at them.
I don't see you changing like that, though. You don't seem like the sort of person who would grow a hard exterior and then let it sink in and consume you.
That's profound, what you just said. I suspect it takes one to know one. But what happens to the ones who can't grow an exoskeleton, even if they wanted to? I think that's what I'm waiting to see. What happens when you put a ladybug under that firehose?
I suppose time will tell, eh? Don't let the bastards get you down. ❤️
Unless you've been successful at hiding it from me, this isn't your (normal?) kind of music. But it is what hit me when I saw the lede, and it is still there at the end. "Let The Broken Pieces Shine." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trbnYwaVvmY
FWIW, Amy Lee has been through some shit.
It’s my darkest secret. “In public,” it reads as a passion for social justice. Which is true. But the truth I try much harder to keep hidden (because it can be so overwhelming) is my extreme and involuntary empathy. And it’s being put through a gauntlet here.
If I were a better person, I would want this quality, or at least not resist it so much. I’m not a better person. Just a person person. But it’s getting more acute, not less, and it’s really starting to worry me.
man....are you good. i just read that NJ is the most densely populated state. ny....florida are also on the list. i live in san diego; from san francisco/marin. today, i was told by a midwesterner that la is sooo crass and cold. LA cold? laughable, to me, but i understand what they were saying coming from one of the dozens of flyover states; those who move slowly and friendlily. when in actuality it is a sort of silent judgmental deceptive friendly. and you do know what happens when a ladybug winds up beneath a firehose. remember, you live in NYC, but...you also lived...i hope LIVED...in italy. thx so much for your wonderful words.
I don’t think I would recognize San Francisco at this point. And a friend of mine recently sent me a few gonzo-style videos of street after street in LA that had been boarded up or was head-high in trash. WTF is going on????
cities in general tolerate the ugliest of human behaviors. i am still haunted by photos of detroit or the blight india or of the bronx which if changed only means it simply relocated? in LA i did not see endless boarded up places but am sure they are there as LA is big and the homeless cap. of the USA. yet comparatively violent crime in la is 29 per 100 vs bronx 44. the US has a different cultural tolerance of everything; homelessness or addiction you simply do not see in germany or denmark or sweden or japan. yet...look at nigeria or india: 25 mil, 18 mil respectively. i do not buy the popular explanation: the lack of available affordable housing is the primary cause of homelessness exacerbated by the expiration of pandemic programs that protected tenants from eviction. imho our inadequate mental health and addiction help eclipse that. amis seem comfortable with shitting in their own bed. and...are we just more comfortable sharing our dregs? NY and london are nearly the same size however london's violent crime is higher than that of NY: 1.8 to 1.4. yet we seldom hear about that. nothing/no one stays no. 1 forever be it apple, juventus, sabretts, taylor swift, spaceX or...the USA. as rome grew, crime grew rampant, rulers became very corrupt and caesar the dictator focused on self protection vs the greater good. Trump, ays he'll be a dictator on day one. welcome to the fall of.....home.
Yes, I agree. It isn't mental illness and addiction that are causing these problems; it's the LACK of resources for mental illness and addiction that are causing these problems. We are always looking in the wrong direction on this issue, pointing fingers at the wrong people. These are the ones whose lives are out of their control, whereas we are perfectly able to allot money and support for them, but choose not to. The result? What we see in every major city across the globe, albeit some more than others.
Being in the Deep South of Italy where the culture is so torturously deformed by centuries of neglect, extreme poverty, and exploitation I have had many of these moments. They are different in nature, of course, the problems are so very different here. But I hear you on the “empathy as a curse” thing…I so often feel that way and wish it was a hose I could turn off once and a while. The only thing that works for me is meditation…it can open up a space where I can simply observe and not engage. It’s not a magic wand, but it can certainly help ❤️
The BEAUTIFUL thing about Italy is that such meditation is possible. I was sitting the other day, and not five minutes into it, a mental patient who frequents the neighborhood, screamed "FUCK!" right outside the window ;-)
I know you see the same things I am seeing and are having the same reaction. Like you, I wish I could turn it off. I do not see this extreme empathy as a virtue, however, since I am more than capable of its opposite.
On an unrelated note, how is Danielle? As you know, she hasn't spoken to me since I got vaccinated, but I do care and I hope she is well.
What a day in the life of empathy and observations of an ever growing problem, where light falls into the cracks of a dark and lonely existence. I’m with you, there’s a blight going on, all around us that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. I feel your humanity. ❤️
Do you ever venture into downtown LA and Hollywood? The video footage I see of those areas is enough to stand my hair on end.
There was a homeless encampment right down the street that ran for a block in front of the mall. So they kicked them out and passed an ordinance. Went to a show at the Wiltern downtown, the area was dirty and unkempt. Hollywood has always been a freak show, but it too has sadly become a place where the City of Angels has completely dropped the ball on its citizenry. 🥲
There were (in 1958) eight million stories in the naked city. New York. But in any case that is a vast undercount in the vast megalopolises of the world. Down the road from our Italian frazione, a small city of sixteen thousand. So, there's another sixteen thousand stories there. Another 80 or so here in our village. What we don't have here is the Wagnerian siren opera which, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, rehearses heat upon a raw-edged nerve. Anyway, Stacey, the variable that separates you (at least until the day you find yourself on a park bench talking to a stranger about some horror, some dream, some persecution, some regret, some remembered love) is the transcendent power of writing, writing well. It keeps one sane.
We write to make sense of things, don't we, dear Vian? We try to give words to emotions that have no words, and even when we fail, we can delude ourselves into thinking we have "managed" something at the same moment we manage nothing.
As is true of many things, it's the effort, the attempt, that matters. It offers growth, but not always success in the strictest sense.
It works is all I know....the question of success or not is an irrelevancy on most days...and the days when it is relevant, it has the feel of pretense, like emerging from the underground where we live to mix with our fellow humans.