A Response to the Madness...

I've been getting some concerned emails from friends who heard about the tsunamis and were worried that Singapore was somehow affected. You can lay those fears to rest, since Malaysia and the other bigger countries around us kinda blocked all the waves, I think. But hey, if the waves really did hit Singapore, we'd probably all be feeding the fishes now, eh?

Since I don't read the papers (except to find out movie times) or watch the news or listen to the radio (iTunes pretty much nixes that), I've been feeling strangely detached from all this. People around me talk about it, and I smile and nod, or make sympathetic sounds at the appropriate times, but I don't really feel anything. I think back, and what I felt during September 11 was really quite similar. You watch images, you look at pictures, and yet because you're not there, it doesn't really hit you. Perhaps that is the way things are in the world right now. After all, didn't tons of people die in Iraq as well? And didn't Bush just go on sending troops to continue the killing? Numbers of dead are just that, numbers. Pictures are just pictures, images nothing more than moving pictures. Isn't it ironic that things that are supposed to reduce the distance between people in the world actually distance them instead?

Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I need to be less self-absorbed. Spend less time in the movie theatres. Read some news. Make a donation. Stop boycotting the media. Try and feel something for someone for once. Stop being a selfish motherfucker.

Maybe.

I don't believe I'm incapable of feeling. Why do I feel like I have to search for it in the movies when there's so much to get from real life? Is it mere escapism I'm after? Shouldn't life be about more than that?

Ah, fuck it. Fuck me. It's all me. Even now, when I try to think about something that's Important, it all comes back to me. What a self-absorbed little shit. Godammit.