There is always a complex feeling when I saw the news that played the pain of others. I really do not know how to react, should I show my compassion or should I be angry to the people who cause this. And my mom always show me a thinking that just so “positive” that annoyed me, then I read Susan Sontag “pain of others”, it makes me wonder if my mom is the kind who is used to what tragedy happened around the worlds.
Here is what happened, in China’s Television channel, there is news about people’s daily life, sometimes is about child abuse, sometimes is about how miserable some people’s life is in countryside, and this show is basically running every single day. That day after dinner, we sat together and watch that show, my mom saw the tragedy on TV screen and turned to me. Slightly put her hand on my shoulder and said “We should really be satisfied of what we had, we had a very good life already, don’t you think so?” I suddenly don’t know how to reply, I had always had some problem with my mom’s thinking, but this sentence just makes me uncomfortable or even a little sick to my stomach.
Yes, It is not only because I feel that people sometimes should be more ambitious, but I know how I should feel appreciated to my life, but is that right for us to use the pain of others as a trigger to make us realize how happy we are? Is that means we build our happiness over the pain of others? However, I do understand why we will feel this way, we watch their pain in front of a screen, we can’t help them, in the end the news are just trying to tell us what is happening out there, and warn us not to do those thing. However, sometimes I do think News make those tragedy too much emotional rather than a News, those touching music, those crying, and heart-breaking image, but this is also a complex decision because they need to catch our attention and make us feel the pain.
However, as what I questioned before, are those image really transmitting the pain of others to us, or we just relating those pains to ourselves to feel the pain, and probably that’s why barely people put in action when they saw? I am sorry I look at people as such cold hearted, but maybe we never notice, but when we saw someone around us get hurts, possibly bleeding, we will help them definitely. However, what are we thinking when we saw that? Is “OMG, he needs help, I need to help him.” Or “OMG, that must be hurts, we need to stop the bleeding.” The direct emotion when we said that must be hurts, it shows we relate to ourselves, if that’s happened to me, it must be painful, this is the emotion that drives our action but not purely compassion. I believed that there is truly compassion on people, but I do believe that is what happen in “Pain of others”, we watch so much, but it is happened to someone we do not know, someone who is far from us, we really can feel the pain? No, we have to relate to ourselves to feel it, and from that, the meaning of compassion has changed. Instead of give compassion to others, we are giving compassion to ourselves.
I believed everything is connected, what we see, what we smell, what we hear, what we taste, what we feel, where we are, blah blah everything is this world. We had no idea what influence it had in a little changes in any single of them, and I think this is what happened, when we broadcast News, who knows people’s mind will change, but we can’t stop it because other effect may occur. I think there is no real answer for what to do is right or wrong, but every decision we made change in overall, so……
