I don’t think I can emotionally accept it, can I? I just saw this video on Instagram (child abuse warning: Agni on Instagram: "TW: emotional. . . . . #fyp #explore #crime #humanity"). It feels very painful to watch. It makes me feel compassion and the urge to do anything to help humanity because it’s the most fucking depressing thing in the world to see an innocent child screaming out for love and begging to have its needs met.
The other day I was at a store on line behind a tiny 3 year old kid who was sitting in her cart, (understandably) bored while her mom talked for like 10 mins to customer service. She started picking her nose and her mom grabbed her hand out of her nose and she was squirming and asking her to stop and the mom hissed at her, “Don’t make me beat you.”
I mean, obviously I need to keep functioning in a world where all of this is happening. Dwelling in pain definitely doesn’t change anything (although it does feel like that pain provides motivation to do something to make things better - isn’t this the function of compassion?).
But then what do I do? Notice myself feeling sad and outraged and see how it’s ineffective? It hurts a lot to feel this way, that much is clear. My mind argues that it’s selfish to just focus on eliminating pain for myself and cut myself off from the pain of others. It really breaks my heart. I want to help the suffering stop