Have We Been Numbed as a Society?

It seems more and more today every where we turn there is bad news on the horizon. With the latest tragedy at Virginia Tech to the death toll rising each day in the war in Iraq we see so much tragedy that what would have astounded us twenty years ago now seems like a way of life.

What has brought us to the point of numbness?. I guess you could say a number of things. Since news coverage is almost everywhere it's hard to miss the wars and tragedies happening all over the world. We as a society want to stay informed of local and world events because it lets us know from day to day how or what we should feel about current events. I ask though have we went to far as to the graphics and explicit information that we demand to take us to the next level of concern. If a five car pile up doesn't amaze us maybe we can switch the channel and see a road side bomb that literally tears a community apart or a beheading of an Innocent by standard by a terrorist wanting to make a statement of fear.

Remember a few years ago when the site of a starving child really bothered us and when a murder in the next county made the news. We lock our doors fearing for our lives. How about when a hostage situation occurred involving Americans or our allies and that situation pulled us together to want and help our neighbor, or to just walk up to a stranger and let them know we live in the best damn country on the face of the earth.

I'm not some liberal to sensor media or their coverage, I am just some one who like many Americans feel like certain things I see or hear throughout the nation or the world just really does not seem to amaze me as much as it did at one time in my life. As a young boy growing up when game companies came out with the exploding space ships and a little blood showing from the nose of a animated foe I was like (WOW!) this has to be the coolest thing I have or will ever see. As I got older and technology progressed what I use to think was so cool had become so out dated. This was when I started realizing that society and our needs were changing.

As I became older and joined the military I quickly learned that I was behind the times and had to catch up. I wanted satellite television and more explicit graphic games. I tossed all my old things because what use to amaze me in my comic books and video games became a blur in my pursuit for more gore and blood shed and challenges. A couple of years into my military career I was deployed to Desert Storm. Here my virtual explosions and gun shots quickly became a reality that was not one I could turn off. I use to stay awake for days at a time freaking out and thinking this is no game this is as real as it can get.
This feeling of fear was soon over taken by the strong rush of adrenalin that came with every pull out to pursue the enemy. Soon I became more tolerant of my fears and not even looking back on most of them. I had adapted to the situation at hand.

This is what I fear is happening in our great country today. With the devastation of Katrina and the burning of churches in the South and the news of yet another school shooting terrorizing a campus these tragedies are as real as it gets and I never want to adapt to these issues as that's just the way it is. Because there are victims and casualties to all these, there are families devastated and dropped to their knees over these issues, there are mental scars put in place that may never heal. I hope as a society we never loose the ability to go to a stranger who was in a car accident or write a family involved in a tragedy and let them know that we are not numb to your pain and we want you to know this event regardless of how bad has brought a tear to our eyes and put concern and compassion for the victims and families in our hearts.

Though everyone may not agree with what goes on in the world. We can never forget that there are people left in the aftermath that are suffering that are hurt or that were victims. We need these feelings to let us know some things still amaze us or astonish us or at best scare the daylights out of us and that we have not become numb to every event we see or hear. I guess in all to let us know as a society even though it did not happen to me I still care and we want to help.