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Somehow last week's earthquake and tsunami just don't feel real to me. Normally this is the type of news story that will grab my attention with both hands and hold my focus for days or weeks. Part of that is my EMS background cropping up in the form of a nagging desire to lend a helping hand and a guilty feeling because there is so little I can do. I can finally drive by an auto accident without too much difficulty, but a big disaster still grabs me somehow. I normally will be glued to the news, trying to capture as much information about the event as I can.
Not this time though. Maybe that's because I've been largely out of touch with the news for the last week or so. I was driving north the day it happened, and didn't hear about it until I arrived at my parents' house. My initial concern was for my brother and sister-in-law, who live in Jakarta. Of course, Jakarta was unaffected, and he called a couple of hours after I arrived. We chatted about the holidays and such--the disaster just felt unreal.
We didn't watch any television all week, and my parents don't get a newspaper, so I really didn't get much information until this weekend when I got home. Of course, I never have time to really read my weekend newspapers, so even then, I only got sketchy information. Today's paper was the first chance I got to really dig into the news, and somehow it just doesn't seem to have the same effect on me now.
I also wonder if the huge scope of the disaster is also making it harder for me to absorb. The numbers are beyond staggering...they have reached a magnitude where it is difficult to really appreciate their meaning. And the geography is also difficult to fully grasp--from Southeast Asia to India to Africa? I just have trouble wrapping my mind around the scale of this event.
The magnitude of the suffering, the amount of relief required, I'm just numb. Coverage of disasters typically makes me quite emotional, so this lack of an emotional response feels wrong. It seems like I should feel something, anything. I find my lack sorrow or anger or any other emotion quite disconcerting.
Not this time though. Maybe that's because I've been largely out of touch with the news for the last week or so. I was driving north the day it happened, and didn't hear about it until I arrived at my parents' house. My initial concern was for my brother and sister-in-law, who live in Jakarta. Of course, Jakarta was unaffected, and he called a couple of hours after I arrived. We chatted about the holidays and such--the disaster just felt unreal.
We didn't watch any television all week, and my parents don't get a newspaper, so I really didn't get much information until this weekend when I got home. Of course, I never have time to really read my weekend newspapers, so even then, I only got sketchy information. Today's paper was the first chance I got to really dig into the news, and somehow it just doesn't seem to have the same effect on me now.
I also wonder if the huge scope of the disaster is also making it harder for me to absorb. The numbers are beyond staggering...they have reached a magnitude where it is difficult to really appreciate their meaning. And the geography is also difficult to fully grasp--from Southeast Asia to India to Africa? I just have trouble wrapping my mind around the scale of this event.
The magnitude of the suffering, the amount of relief required, I'm just numb. Coverage of disasters typically makes me quite emotional, so this lack of an emotional response feels wrong. It seems like I should feel something, anything. I find my lack sorrow or anger or any other emotion quite disconcerting.
