Table of Contents
The Weight On My Shoulders
I just got out of a tough period in my life, and I realize now how dangerous it is to suppress your emotions or to be emotionally distant from your circumstances. We need outlets. Our bodies can only take so much. I feel like my heart is on an irreversible course of disordered rhythm because of the anxiety I carry.
For weeks now, I can’t breathe. I’m overwhelmed. I look for external distractions, but the world screams back more fear and more cruelty. Everything gets to me. I had to survive myself yet again, but I make no promises.
I am one human with one-human weight on my shoulders. For one-me, that is more than enough – more than I can take sometimes – and it’s heavy to carry, but I have no control over it. Time will fix my problems.
The World Screams Back
Thoughts on the Situation in Gaza
But there’s something else I also have to say. We live in a digital world, and in most parts of the world, specifically the whole Western world, we have enough resources that we can’t say we don’t see things or that we don’t know about them.
Even when you don’t look for it, the information is there. I feel like people are very enamored of their comfort zones. That’s great, you know, when you think about your favorite movie and a self-care routine on Saturday evening and all that, but how are you so comfortable with the crime and monstrosity of this proportions, that’s also very public? We all see it.
There’s this island in my country, very close to my city. It’s visible from the mainland, and I’ve seen it a million times. I always considered it small, like a cute little place and community, with an area of 396 square kilometers. And now I googled the Gaza Strip. Guys, it’s 365 square kilometers!
We can’t not see it for what it is. And I have to talk about it. I’m an idiot about politics, about many things, so I rather stay quiet on them, but this isn’t about politics. We are witnessing one of the biggest genocides in recent times. I don’t understand how the whole world is not burning already with rage over the injustice.
They are bombarding the hospitals and the schools. They’re targeting the journalists who could debunk their narrative. They are cutting off electricity, and people can’t seek medical help. They set traps for them, corner them, and then kill them. They are herding Palestinians like lambs for slaughter.
I don’t have a big following on any platform, which means I might be talking to a wall here, but I have to do it anyway. We are not taking this seriously enough. And by us, I mean people in the West. In our homes, safe and warm. Choosing sides here seems like asking: chocolate or vanilla? Which side looks more polished, more white?
Over there, the questions are different, but where I’m from, and more to the West, nobody looked at facts because, of course, it’s easy to sell the religion, the culture, and the language promoted as barbaric for so long as the bad guys. The fault of the Palestinians is that they don’t wear Western suits, so they must be some savages worthy of punishment.
That’s why nobody realizes how silly they sound when they say: “I don’t even know what’s going on over there.” What luxury! You wouldn’t feel so free to turn a blind eye if they looked more like you.
From The River To The Sea
I don’t know what to say exactly anymore. Sometimes, I wish those superheroes we see on TV existed. I wish I could turn into one of them and do something useful.
The last thing I will say on this for now, to anyone reading this, is Hamas ≠ Palestine. Learn to separate the two because the ignorance I’ve seen online recently is dangerous.
People are sharing more information on this topic on social media, and more news will come in the following time, too, so please engage, read, and don’t ignore it. Also, if you have any resources you want to share, feel free to add those in the comments, too.
Anyway, I let this rant go on because I needed to say it. I wanted to unload the weight that’s been on my chest for a couple of months now, but currently, other things take precedence, so it led me to talk about them. Feel free to add more in the comments.
Thank you for sharing, mylittlehawk. I can relate to the compassion for the suffering of others, acknowledgement of my own privilege to be distant, and also the horror at genocide and the wish to save everyone. The path I choose is to do little things to help others in my own community who are where I’ve been (addiction and recovery). It’s what I can do, as just one person. It’s what I need to do, actually, to save myself from despair.
Thanks for stopping by, and for each little change you create in the world to make it better! That’s exactly what we should do. We often isolate ourselves, thinking our one action won’t fix anything, but brick by brick… We are not alone, none of us, and each of our actions has impact on others. I refuse to be silent. It may not reach far, and I don’t know if it will have any real effect, but I promised myself to speak up, for myself and whoever needs it. I’ve had it enough with convenient, performative help/activism.