I write a poem while there is a war in Ukraine. I grocery shop for organic produce while there's genocide in Myanmar. I dance half naked in a techno club while girls in Iran are being murdered for showing their hair.
Can I love life by bathing in pleasure, knowing others can’t? Can my joy still be real joy, regardless of worldly suffering? Am I stable only because of cognitive dissonance?
If I really had empathy, no time would be wasted with doom scrolling. If I genuinely felt the fragility of life, I wouldn't be able to watch television. If I truly loved other people, I would extend myself until there was no self.
Sometimes I am apathetic because the world is so big, and I don’t know my place in it. Sometimes I am ashamed of the futility of my modernized life, and the vacuity I have willingly played part in. Sometimes I sit in silence and pray to be good.
Sometimes God picks up the phone, and all I hear is static.
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