Newer subscribers to my blog don’t know that I haven’t written one of these in a while. A long while. In fact, some older subscribers probably received this and thought, “I forgot I was even subscribed to this thing”. Yes, I was really busy with my book release for a few months, but the big reason that I wasn’t writing to you was because I could find nothing of interest to write about, and worse, I just didn’t care. I hope it’s not just me, but at some point around the end of this pandemic (whenever that was) I found myself not giving a shit. I could not find the humor in anything in the news and I noticed that I had something I call “Empathy Fatigue”, a condition caused by the relentless bombardment of social issues that the media feels I should be outraged by. Climate change. Covid. (it’s still all around us!) Transgender rights. Economic disparities. Racial inequities.
I don’t care. Maybe I used to care - at least a little bit - about some of those things, but the media’s constant nagging has extinguished most sympathy I had for my fellow man.
Today, an article decried the fact that there are still millions of workers not even making $15 an hour. I know why. It’s because a lot of people aren’t worth paying $15 an hour to. In fact, there’s a lot of worthless slugs not worth $10 an hour. Now there’s a newspaper headline I’d like to see. I’d look up from my reading and exclaim, “Finally! Someone is pointing out the obvious!”
On the racial front - the outrage I’m expected to have about cops pulling over young black men more often than whites is somewhat overshadowed by the fact that everywhere I look, young black thugs seem to be going apeshit in out of control crime & violence sprees. So excuse me if I don’t wring my hands in anguish.
But the real reason that you might feel somewhat as I do is this:
The war in Ukraine has put life in perspective.
It was a jolt that reminds us that, “Whoa there’s people just like us suddenly sleeping in a bombed out mall that they were shopping in just two weeks ago!” Ukraine is why the transgender outrage over how they want to be addressed seems a little silly nowadays - and why they aren’t on the front page lately.
Suddenly, there’s a lot I want to talk about but this little rant will suffice for now. I still haven’t really addressed the title of this blog, which was about my mental and physical state. Actually, you got a glimpse of one facet of my mental state.
More to come shortly.
Drew
An update on my mental & physical state.
Drew, first of all, I hope that your beautiful wife and son (and daughter) are helping with mental stability. Second - please run for President. It’s rare I find someone with the same feelings I have on all the media BS. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. 🤣. My grandfather came to the US from Ukraine as a child and I have many distant relatives there. My heart breaks for the Ukrainian people but I’m also scared shitless that it could happen to us. Selfish? Maybe. I’m hanging onto the mindset that we need more love and understanding in this world but after the last couple of years, that mindset is dwindling. Love and understanding only goes so far. Im to the point that I want to yell at all the people playing the race card to man up and quit acting like idiots. Same with the transgender crap. I don’t care what people choose to be or how they act until it affects me. All the “poor me” bullshit is really starting to affect me. I love hearing your take on things Drew. Please keep writing!!! ❤️
“Empathy Fatigue” is such an accurate label! Particularly when some of us are struggling with issues that don’t make headlines or evolve into rallies and protests.