By Nancy Patrick

I have decided that watching news programming on television, listening to podcasts, and creating blogs may contribute negatively to my mental health. I actually have friends who limit news time on television to thirty minutes per day to avoid overdosing on the information about world’s tragedies and atrocities.

Of course, podcasts and blogs typically focus on the authors’ opinions of issues and events, thus making them biased by nature. There is nothing wrong with slanted writing as long as the creators honestly convey their purpose: to influence readers to agree with their positions.

Before technology connected the world with satellites that provide live coverage of every incident in every little country around the globe, people waited to learn of world events. At least waiting for newspaper reports and radio/television updates staggered the coverage so people didn’t get the full coverage in one great deluge.

That delay in communication spread out knowledge over a period of time rather than flooding the population with too much information to process. We now see many events unfold in real time over our televisions. Reading about a bomb’s destruction rather than watching the bomb fall as it kills and maims thousands evokes two different emotional responses.

The world has so many ongoing issues at any one time that I doubt people have enough time to form logical beliefs. As I write these words, Russian forces continue to destroy Ukraine with hatred, greed, and viciousness stemming from Vladimir Putin’s political ambitions.

On October 7, 2023, the Hamas branch of Palestine committed one of the most heinous acts of terrorism in that area’s history. As thousands of Israelis celebrated during an outdoor festival, Hamas terrorists seemed to jump right out of their underground tunnels and attack the concert goers.

In the attack, the terrorists killed, raped, and kidnapped hundreds of civilian Israelis. They indiscriminately took men, women, and children regardless of age. They raided homes where Israelis had settled in Palestinian territories and took the occupants. 

Palestinians have endured Israeli occupation since a six-day war in 1967 which granted Israel certain rights of occupation. This occupation has resulted in a lifestyle of constant vigilance and fear as enemies live in such close proximity.

After the Hamas’ attack, Israel responded with a non-stop blitz whose goal is to wipe the Hamas regime off the face of the earth. The atrocities committed by Israeli troops match in many regards that of Hamas with no regard for civilian life.

The intensity of the Israeli response has been so great as to strain its alliance with the United States. American citizens, especially students at major universities across the country, have staged large public demonstrations supporting both sides of the conflict. These violent demonstrations illustrate the great divide in our own country. 

As a person with no affiliation with any sect in that land, I can only watch and read in horror as bone-marrow hatred turns human beings into cold-blooded murderers who relish the torture and destruction of other human beings. I have heard women on both sides describe their hatred of those on the other side, saying their enemies do not deserve any compassion. 

The nations of the world today have become a global society. I started to say “global community,” but the word “community” has implications that do not fit the real world’s global existence. “Community” usually suggests some sort of commonality that instills shared values among the members. 

Those intrinsic values reach deeper than race or culture. These values make us human rather than other life forms. For example, all humans value and recognize things such as food, shelter, safety, respect for life and dignity, love, meaningfulness, purpose, and worth.

Notice that neither ethnicity nor spirituality appears in my random list. I omitted those terms on purpose because even though ethnic groups and spiritual beliefs differ greatly from one another, human beings in general seek all those values regardless of race or religion.

As the world today seems more hostile than I remember it in my seven decades of life, I cannot avoid thinking about the various conflicts I observe all over the globe. World War II had just ended a few years before my birth in 1950, so I obviously have no memories of it. 

My generation of Baby Boomers was born from of our parents’ survival and resurgence after a horrific war involving all the major world powers of the time.

Since then, wars have continued endlessly in pockets all over the world; however, until recently, we have somehow avoided World War III. Though our country is not now officially engaged in war, we continue to hate and hurt others: random gun violence all over the country, fights over people’s rights to control their own medical decisions, gender identification, and border security within immigration laws.

From The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny, one character who had fled Europe during Slavic conflicts in the 1980s, Roar Parra told Inspector Gamache that he had come to Canada because he “was fed up with people. Wanted nothing to do with them.” 

He went on to explain how his family had become sickened by “what people can do” when “goaded by others, emboldened and infected by cynicism, fear, and suspicion, jealousy, and greed.” He ended his diatribe by simply stating, “I want nothing to do with them.”

I confess that I understand this character’s feelings. Sometimes the anger, fear, and bitterness flooding the world can overcome the heartfelt desire to make the world a better place, resulting in the desire to abandon it to itself. 

Nancy Patrick is a retired teacher who lives in Abilene and enjoys writing