Shutting Down The Mind

Sometimes I feel like my mind wants to shut down, like my heart wants to turn itself off and not feel anymore. I feel like I have seen too much, too much for my own good, and now what I saw, what I experienced, all of the experiences of the past, especially the negative ones, have brought me to the point where I just want to shut it all down, to stop thinking. To stop caring.
Empathy is such a curse. It causes us to do things we wouldn’t normally do for people we don’t even know because what we do know is that we do not wish for them to suffer. That prisoner sitting in his cell, crying because of his inner pain? Because of where he is in life? That loneliness? I feel it. The homeless man whose stomach is twisted in knots, which has an aching void that can’t be filled with mere food, I feel that. A woman who has lost her self-worth, her personal integrity, all that made her secure and happy. I bathe in that hopelessness and insecurity. I feel it all.
It’s like having sensitive hearing, and everyone around you is screaming for help. I keep trying, I keep working to devote what time, what money I have, but it’s not enough, and it’s not going to be enough, and I just can’t be happy with that. Hell, at this point I’m not even certain I can be happy. I’ve lost faith in my country, I’ve lost faith in religion, I’ve lost faith in many people, and the crumbling walls just keep right on breaking down. Where solid granite once stood, now there are only little piles of soot and dust. Ghost images of what once was and is no more.
I think the holidays are compounding the problem. This is the time of year where we try to be happy, try to celebrate, to live in joy, when in the back of our minds we know that there are so many things wrong, so many things that need addressing. If only I could push them all the way back and keep them out of focus, but I can’t. I never could. Even as a child, I would give up my toys, my lunch, my favorite pencils, things other kids wanted or needed, not because I wanted to be a good boy, not because I wanted praise, but because I had to do it. What’s more, I needed to do it. Ask me for the last bite of my sandwich and it’s yours. The last drop of water in the desert? Yours.
I want so badly to end all of the suffering. I want women to feel safe from leering, angry men. I want children to be free from predators seeking to exploit them for personal gain (and that goes for many things, not just the obvious ones). I want the homeless to have shelter. I want the weak to have strength in numbers. I want joy to be a constant aspect of life, not an exception to it. I want hunger to be a long forgotten memory due to an overwhelming abundance given out of generosity, and I know and I know and I KNOW that we are capable of it, we can do it, if we really wanted to do it together.
* I look at a legal system that doesn’t want to help, it only wants to fill quotas.
* I look at a government that seeks to line its own pockets, and look out for its own interests.
* I see people who are fine with being watched, invaded, poked and prodded as long as the other distractions are shiny and pleasant to look at.
* I see a large swathe of people who are losing the ability to understand what it is to be human. They’ve chosen to emulate what they see on TV and in popular media. A semblance of humanity, without the presence or intelligence behind it to comprehend the meaning of that humanity.
* I see emotions being put into boxes, and only let out at times deemed socially appropriate. Questions of why we care, why we do what we do, what it does to benefit us are becoming the norm. Everything has a price tag now. Everything. One cannot just do something good, cannot do the right thing, there must be an ulterior motive. I believe THAT line of thinking springs from the disease of blatant and unadulterated capitalism: we know the monetary cost of everything, but we don’t know its true value.
Cliche? Yep. Still true. Watching human beings dehumanize one another is tearing my mind apart. Reading the new horrors we unleash upon one another every day is shredding my heart to pieces. I try not to focus on it, but I can’t ignore it. I am compelled to act in any way I can, and I have to fight my own heart and mind to deal with it, because they have both become so confused in all of this mess, I just don’t know which way is up anymore, aside from my own internal compass. While it may not steer me wrong, others may not agree, and since they get to tell my body what it can and can’t do, that only means trouble for me.
No good deed goes unpunished used to be a cheeky reference to the notion that no matter what good you do, there are unintended consequences that may get you in trouble later. These days, though, it’s like we’re trying to design our society around the idea itself, like we think we should live that way, that we should punish without context, impound with immunity, and disregard without consideration. Schadenfreude is a heady feeling, and some people will take any good feeling to escape the bad ones, and that one concerns me most of all.
I don’t know. I just don’t know. I wish I could figure it all out, but I am so overwhelmed anymore. That’s why I just want to shut it all down.