I need my on-line friends to help me keep in mind the big picture. I need their openness and honesty in how they deal with different things.
I finally cried for Japan today. I finally watched a news clip and cried.
We all cope with tragedy differently. And some of us cope better than others. The reason I talk about coping so much is because of how crazy things can get within ourselves just trying to take in (or ignore) the magnitude of some tragedies. And sometimes we aren't even conscious of our coping strategies.
Last night, I watched a children's cartoon, an anime that originated in Japan. It's crazy, but I didn't connect it to today's events until this morning.
In the anime, Earth is being bombarded with radiation by aliens. Life on earth was forced underground and the heroes had one year to complete a quest to a distant planet and back or all life would be extinguished.
This morning, I realized it was my subconscious mind's way of getting around to dealing with this. It helped me connect to the human tragedy and Japan's present fight with time and their damaged nuclear reactor.
The U.S. and Japan are deeply connected, first in conflict, then in peace. Starting from Pearl Harbor, moving through Hiroshima and Nagasaki and into a close friendship.
My personal connections with Japan are the fact that my brother was stationed there with his wife a few years back and my husband's brother's wife was a missionary there. And I couldn't even think of these connections until I watch a children's cartoon. I openly admit, my coping systems aren't the best.
http://www.starblazers.com/home.php
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
hey don't feel bad, hell I tend to laugh [using sarcasm/bad jokes] at first, feeling Horribly guilty [I think this is related to the Years of knowing/reading up on the most horrid of human right abuses Paid for by governments including our very own Christianese gov] and then I feel ultra guilty
then angry.
I tend to be a hard case, actually, not Detached totally, no, but not shocked either, which of course leaves me to feel horrible, Because I am so hard,
on Some things, well what I mean by that, is that some things I take just as life itself, horrid as it is, part of nature, so I take it in stride,
it's the things that Can be prevented, that piss me off, that I tend to react more on. Personally for me I'd rather die at the hands of nature, including disaster because I see it as type of the nature-cycle,
it's the man made, the indifference, the consumerism and all the other garbage, that just irks me to no end, and it's NOT that I don't have empathy for the ones who died in the Tsunami or Earthquake, I do,
it's what follows after that I tend to react more strongly to OR how corruption, like in Haiti, which has a LOT to do with contributing to deaths, that could be prevented, Even in disasters, that well, Those issues, to me have far more weight in horror.
we all react differently to Grief however, so that's to be expected, I read laughing-sarcasm is a Defense mechanism, i.e. I had to chuckle at all the Cars being tossed around like toys, and thinking gee they have All these cars and phones but no life preservers, how odd and well kind of stupid,
yea I think like that...Maybe that comes from however, being part of the hard class where survival for us, has been having to fight and thrive on subsistence--I think it Does effect how one views things. I know, not too long ago, some Christian relief put out this thing on people living doing dumpster diving in other countries, how horrible it was, and I was thinking, "you Got to be kidding, hell we do that here in This country, what Privilege you must have to even be appalled at this", and I had to just laugh--this is where class difference Really shows, the Horror I think from Japan, is really, how the train those in the more well to do sectors, and rural folks, the more poor, are kind of left, screwed,
you can see it in the building codes, that sort of thing, it's Those things, that I tend to notice. That and well, at least, in Japan, in a Socialist culture, they take Care of one another--wouldn't be that way here, and Japan is highly atheist, yet they ACT more Christian,
than most here. That, is what should slap people OUT of their stupor!
Jane
We all have to do this in our own way Mara.
I remember sitting in front of the TV, and they showed miles of foundations, trash, etc. The only thing you didn't see was people. Not one.
I mean you are expecting to see people on the roof tops WAVING something to get people's attention. I was thinking of past tragedies, and then I saw no one.
A picture of a girl I went to college with was from Japan. She gave me her high school graduation picture, and I believe she went back home after her schooling was done. I hoped and prayed for her and her family.
It is amazing to see how their structures held up, and how the people are behaving like Jane.
Post a Comment