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Sure they will oh ye of little faith. To answer the exact question no, I don't mourn them. Not because I don't care, I do care that people are killed by whacko's. I can't mentally/physically endure mourning all those that die at the hands of bad people if I did I'd never crawl out from under my bed. Close family,friends are a different story because I'm in their sphere of existence but that's about as far as I can go.
Thinking about the loss of life, and injuries of so many in Boston makes me very sad. I do mourn the horrible waste of life, both for the victims and for the bombers, who altered the course of their own lives for the worse, and for no good reason that I can fathom.
I am not sure what you are driving at in your earliest post. Are you thinking that the victims are not deserving of mourning? Or that you don't think it is normal for others to feel sorrow about their injuries and deaths?
It's hard to garner compassion for events so far removed from my life, that are also inconceivable to my psyche! The earthquake/tsunami in Japan is an example!
I rarely have any compassion for the dead, as they're the "luckier" ones, the suffering of the injured tugs at my heart strings more than anything. When a bomb goes off in the Middle East, given the lack of long-term care facilities, and them being dependent on family members the rest of their lives for eating, or going to the bathroom, it's the permanently disabled that'll do it for me, particularly if they were young at the time!
On a walk thru a slum in Latin America one time, I happened to see a younger man in a hut, thru an open door, obviously permanently disabled in some way, in a bed, more than likely totally dependent on his family for his care for the rest of his pitiful days! It's haunted me eversince!
In this country, you know those effected by that bombing in Boston aren't ever going to live like that 'til their dying days!
And, I'm slightly amused always when I hear having sympathy for the families' loved ones. What a blanket assumption that is! How are we to know!!! A wife could have lost a husband she had long been considering divorcing, and now with the life insurance payout, she's still out celebrating! Most relationships/marriages are a love/hate ordeal anyway!
Eastern philosophy states it all too well: You can't love someone without simultaneous hating them, can't hate someone without simultaneously loving them!
It's hard to garner compassion for events so far removed from my life, that are also inconceivable to my psyche! The earthquake/tsunami in Japan is an example!
I rarely have any compassion for the dead, as they're the "luckier" ones, the suffering of the injured tugs at my heart strings more than anything. When a bomb goes off in the Middle East, given the lack of long-term care facilities, and them being dependent on family members the rest of their lives for eating, or going to the bathroom, it's the permanently disabled that'll do it for me, particularly if they were young at the time!
On a walk thru a slum in Latin America one time, I happened to see a younger man in a hut, thru an open door, obviously permanently disabled in some way, in a bed, more than likely totally dependent on his family for his care for the rest of his pitiful days! It's haunted me eversince!
In this country, you know those effected by that bombing in Boston aren't ever going to live like that 'til their dying days!
And, I'm slightly amused always when I hear having sympathy for the families' loved ones. What a blanket assumption that is! How are we to know!!! A wife could have lost a husband she had long been considering divorcing, and now with the life insurance payout, she's still out celebrating! Most relationships/marriages are a love/hate ordeal anyway!
Eastern philosophy states it all too well: You can't love someone without simultaneous hating them, can't hate someone without simultaneously loving them!
This reminded me: I was in a terrible marriage once and couldn't see any way out except for my husband's death. (If I said I was going to leave he would threaten to take our daughter and disappear and I would never see her again, and I believed him.) My relief was to fantasize about his death. Hey, he was using drugs and was a dedicated drinker and his father had dropped dead of a heart attack in his forties, so the possibility was real.
During that time, Katie Couric's husband died of cancer shortly after being diagnosed. There she was on every TV show and magazine, crying in public and mourning over her husband--and I did not believe her grief was real. I could not imagine that someone could actually be so torn up over a damned HUSBAND, and I figured she must be secretly thrilled and was putting on an act.
My personnel perspective totally colored what I saw.
It was similar with Boston. The images that strike me most were the people who lost limbs. My late father was a double amputee, courtesy of WWII. I thought of him, aged 23, having legs one day and having them gone the next and living that way for the next 55 years.
I also feel for the people who were in the vicinity and may not have been hurt but whom I know are waking up in the night rehearing the bomb blasts and having flashbacks of the horrors that they saw. I was in the WTC on 9/11/01, and I can tell them that while most of it will fade, it never ever completely goes away--especially when the next explosion that kills or maims innocent people comes along.
As for Katie Couric, she could very well be a greedy workaholic, work comes ahead of everything, and the tears erupted from her neglecting the needs/desires of her husband for too many years. How many times did she say to him: Next year, next year, we'll do this, we'll do that, when I have more time!
When my mother was diagnosed with liver cancer, racing against the clock, I made sure she saw all the places she ever wanted to see before she died: Hawaii, Alaska, New England, Smokey Mountains and one cruise. That's all she talked about I her last days in nursing home, driving the staff crazy with her repeated stories. I wanted to make absolutely sure she had a happy death!
Not one tear was shed at her funeral! No tears since then!
I get very suspicious of people who have lost loved ones, and their mourning period never ends!
Personally, I dont think I ever feel overly sad for stangers except in 2 case, Oklahoma City bombing b/c i couldnt get that picture of the lil baby out of my head, and for the those kids at Sandy hook in Conn. That may have literally been the only time I shed a tear for a stranger
As cruel as it sounds, after 9-11 and Oklahmona city, Boston didnt hit me that hard b/c of only 3 deaths. If you knew one of those 3 people, Im sure its extremely painful and not to be minimized. But in this current world of bombings and mass shooting, Boston actually seemed rather tame
I know exactly what you are saying, and I feel the same way! Oklahoma City hit me the hardest, then 9/11, and I can't believe how much attention this case in Boston got (is getting), although I hate what happened and that anyone lost their life by those creeps. I've heard much more about Boston than I did West, Texas., and more people died in Texas. I also am not sure how I feel about the 9/11 victims families getting those millions of dollars because their loved one died. I have a loved one who passed away, and I guarantee you that no one involved in 9/11 felt worse than I did ( and do) but I wasn't compensated, nor expected to be, as people lose their lives every day.NY has so many charitable groups that gave money to the victims families, there's no telling how much money they ended up with. I know for a fact that quite a few of the couples were about to divorce, but they weren't divorced at that moment, so they got the money too.
As for Katie Couric, she could very well be a greedy workaholic, work comes ahead of everything, and the tears erupted from her neglecting the needs/desires of her husband for too many years. How many times did she say to him: Next year, next year, we'll do this, we'll do that, when I have more time!
When my mother was diagnosed with liver cancer, racing against the clock, I made sure she saw all the places she ever wanted to see before she died: Hawaii, Alaska, New England, Smokey Mountains and one cruise. That's all she talked about I her last days in nursing home, driving the staff crazy with her repeated stories. I wanted to make absolutely sure she had a happy death!
Not one tear was shed at her funeral! No tears since then!
I get very suspicious of people who have lost loved ones, and their mourning period never ends!
I don't know why thats confusing to you. It would confuse me if someone lost a child and did get over it.
I don't know why thats confusing to you. It would confuse me if someone lost a child and did get over it.
In that situation, I don't think anyone ever does.
A couple of years ago I was walking through a small cemetery near my sister's house in PA. It was a week or so after Easter. I noticed a small headstone with a lamb on top, and knew it had to be a child, and walked over to look at it. Sure enough, it was the grave of a baby girl who had lived only a few months, born and died in 1966--and there were fresh flowers on the grave.
In my experience most people really don't care what happens to anyone outside of a small group of family and very close friends. They just strike it up to the human experience.
What I feel the OP was talking about here is not a matter of emotion, but a matter of compassion.
When a tragedy happens, be it man-made, nature-made, etc., we are called on to have compassion for it by taking on the "hurt" of those affected, and to lift them up with true actual and factual states of consciousness such as Love, Joy, Peace, etc.
I don't have to know someone to have compassion for them. To the extent that I know that person or not is the extent to whether I know what they've been through and if I can recall similiar experience with said tragedy.
Compassion is an attitude that we care about other people regardless of what else is going on in their life.
If you don't have that, there is something wrong with you. If you attribute the source of evil/tragedy/etc. to the "GOOD" or "GOD" in the universe, you are wrong and should finding a new conception of the world.
For religious folks, God is their Comforter. If you don't have that, can you have compassion? Perhaps. I don't don't know how. Maybe folks who don't have religion have a hope that people can have a compassionate force. But if you look at such a tragedy and just say, "I'm glad that didn't happen to me or around here.", that's not compassion. We are held to be like brothers and sisters to each other, to have courage and faith in helping each other, especially when one of us are down or hurt.
God is said to even have compassion for the wicked, they just don't know how to respond to it.
Where is one to turn to if they don't have trust/faith in Something that is all-Good and all-compassionate? Nowhere. One would be lost.
There's another side to created tragedy; responsibility and justice. Forgiveness does not mean forget. When someone commits a crime, they are to pay the penalty. This is called punishment and it's necessary. It's the government's responsibility to issue a punishment that meets the crime. But can the perpetrator be forgiven and loved? Sure... in the proper order.
Love-goodness-mercy. Certain things are put up with and certain things are not.
Think really hard where the world would be right now if there was no United States of America. Honestly. Look at human nature as a whole and lay it out. What kind of world would this really be. It makes me wonder how things can be as good as they are as a whole sometimes.
Let's look at the religious view for just a second; Did God plan this tragedy? Know about it? Do anything to prevent it? Why or why not? No. Yes. No.
Why or why not? Could have God prevented it? Sure. Why? Because God is all powerful. Why let it happen? God will permit you to sin if you insist. But... maybe there is punishment for such things. Maybe there are limitations to such things.
Again, to the religious view; is this a fallen world or not? Do we get spiritual during tragedy? How about three weeks down the road?
No matter how you look at it, I say we have a choice. We are responsible. It's up to us.
I didn't want to go through 8 pages to see if this was already pointed out but it is funny that the OP's name is Mr. Spock.
A Vulcan without human emotion.
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Anyway, I felt some empathy. I placed myself in those people's shoes and imagined how horrible the situations were.
The marathon was more striking though because of all of the images surrounding it. I admittedly didn't feel as bad for the explosion in West Texas because I didn't hear or see about it as much.
The fact that one was an accident (kinda) and one was malicious also played a part.
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In the end there are degrees of care and acceptable caring and that differs from person to person.
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Most relationships/marriages are a love/hate ordeal anyway!
