There’s a lot of bad shit happening in the world, and none of us care about all of it as we do about what’s closest to home. Maybe some do, but they’d be miserable all the time. No one likes being miserable, so we tune some of it out. The easy answer is “well it’s on the other side of the planet so it doesn’t affect me.” And while most people will agree, a complete lack of empathy makes a person a psychopath, most people also don’t have empathy for everyone in the world. We all have a filter. Do I agree with what the west is doing to Iran? No, but my heart doesn’t break for them like it might if it were in the next country over. Does that make me a monster? Maybe, to the Iranians, but empathy has to have reasonable limits, because sanity definitely has limits.

Now, if it’s right outside your door (or in your home) and it doesn’t affect you, I think that’s different. But also, everybody mourns differently. I never cried for my father when he passed almost 23 years ago. I do think of him almost every day though. Like our favourite author (Stephen King) said, you do not forget the face of your father (paraphrased from the Dark Tower series). The face meaning, what he taught you. And, like my father before me, I am an Atheist, and we both believe that life is finite, and it is to be enjoyed while we have it, and being upset about someone who lived, not living anymore, is selfish, and unfair to the billions or trillions who were never born. Darwin said it better than I could. Anyway, he didn’t view death as a sadness, but rather life as happiness, and I’m the same. I remember the good. I remember the bad, and I try to learn from it. No one ever called me psycho to my face. Maybe some of them thought it, but I don’t think I am.

How is it the British say it? “Keep calm and carry on”? Yeah, that’s me as well.