The Horrors of WHOMP

I had a whole thing planned out for this entry. In fact, I had a bunch of plans for today. But the truth is, I am really disturbed. This morning, I woke up to find the news headline of how they bombed a hospital in Gaza, or Israel, or which ever. It was horrifying enough on its own, but later on a news came out that it was just an accident. I chaled it up to the horros of armed conflict, but the internet's obsession with the macarb knows no bounds and I was bombarded with the news in various ways online. I was totally fine with it, I even felt a responcibilty to see it, as I usually do.

There was a telling  public address by the hospital survivors and administration. The look of absolute horror in the eyes of the main doctor was bone-chilling and spoke volumes. Now, the depth of darkness in the world is not a new thing, but I believe that it's better for each person to decide the degree to which they wish to expose themselves to it. After all, the abyss stares right back. Admittedly, it's my fault for being online way longer than I'd prefer today, mindlessly scrolling like an addict. With that said, everything I had seen until then was just fine.

Sure, I had definitely overeaten, and even though I had mostly hit my fitness goal for the day, I felt sick by the time the clock hit 12 because of the garbade food I had consumed. All of which, was fine. I still had a few hours to complete my work for the day, write another entry here, talking about the things that struck out to me today. Perhaps one more peek at some memes won't hurt. And that's when I saw it. No disclaimer, no warning, as matter of fact as a pretty tree in one's background. Some rando had posted it on their story. Perhaps he/she had seen it, and felt something similar to myself. Perhaps they felt something else entirely.

Regardless of whatever went through this person's mind, they obviously decided what they had seen was something worth sharing with literally everyone else. Whatever justification they might have conjured up, let me tell you now, that it wasn't appropriate. If that wasn't enough warning for the reader, let me say outright: read on at your own risk. 

You might know what it's like to scroll through people's stories. It's a lot like TikTok. Your mind is impressionable, and 100% concentrated at the screen. You focus every ounce of your attention to this little colorful brick, so you can judge very quickly if what you are looking at is worth the 10-odd seconds of your life. What I saw, shook me to the core. It was a newborn and it hadn't died. It's face, covered with black spots of shrapnel. A piece even found its way to one of his/her eyes. There was audio as well. The damage wasn't nearly enough to qualify as a mortal wound, at least not immediately. I suspect the hearing faculties might have sustained some damage. Nevertheless, he cried out for mercy. The child of god cried out in a haunting screech that sounded like it was exhausted from crying. She was obviously in immense pain. 

I witnessed maybe five senconds of that horror. Now, no matter how closely identified a person may feel to anything at all, no matter how justified they feel in their mission, some things, are just not meant to be looked at. Some things, are better to be left out. I have always been keen on looking at a dead body on the side of the road. Never wanted t look away from surgeries, shit, or any manner of nastiness. This is real life, I told myself. Learn from the doctors and nurses who deal with these things everyday, the scientists and sewage workers that must previal over it. Yet, because I have seen them, I know, that no matter the context, you don't air a real piece of shit on TV.

It's the same reason why you don't make the footage of a murder public, or broadcast the audio of animal cruelty. Some people think, that suffering in itself is just. That if only everyone suffers enough, perhaps ligth will prevail. Regardless of what anyone thinks at all, there is a real funtion and beauty in the dark. The horrors have power over us, because of their ability to disturb. Without dark forces, you can never know light. Those are unalienable facts of life. Without their acceptance, you are doomed to pick a side. When I saw that video, and heard that voice, I felt like my mind was on fire. I eyes flared up, and the image burned all the way through my eyes to the back of my skull. If felt like someone had verbally abused me, or that there was a vicious animal that had entered my room. 

At the same time, I felt alert and I actively started to disassociate. I reflexively laughed it off, and found myself singing Bo Burnham's welcome to the internet. But I was furious. There was disgust and anger boiling inside me. I became so restless that it felt like I was alert and ready to face a threat. I still feel it now, although it is waning off slowly. Have you ever witnessed a live animal that's experiencing excrutiating pain? Torture doesn't begin to cover it. As far as my curiosities have taken me, I am still incredibly privilaged, and insanely soft. I pray for insect if I have to kill them, and I think things through ten times before I say them out loud in front of another person.

I am unwilling and unable to hurt anyone, for the life of me. For some reason, it seems like some people out there think that this is something to be eradicated. Professional and hardened men have to undergo years of thrapy when they witness an injured child. There was a story of first responders showing up to a family's home when a son had slit his wrists at 3 am. His mother found him in the morning, and the police on-scene were horrified as her primal screams were forever etched into their memories. Everyone who was there underwent years of therapy in the coming years, and those were people who were somewhat prepared to face the worst on their jobs.

I remeber feeling someothing similar as today, when a strange and disturbed girl in college showed me a video in the mess hall while having breakfast. There were many things wrong with her, so I didn't think much of it, but the feeling was something like this. It was a short video of Brazilian gangsters cutting open a man's chest as he screamed for mercy. The ripped his heart out of his chest and threw it on his face, with all the arteries still attached. The man must have lost consciousness halfway through, but seemed eerily aware by his breathing and voice modulations of the horrifying nature of the act being performed on him.

I can hardly imagine a worse way to go, except for being set on fire, perhaps. The baby was easily multiple times worse than this man's gruesome demise. The thing is, once you see something like that, you can never unsee it. It sticks to you, bleeds in, and starts to corrupt your being. Your mind adapts to it by becoming a little more hardened, and you become a bit more numb. We aren't designed to be empathtic to incredible levels of unbearable pain, we are hard-wired to block it out at all costs. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, these horrors are not a new thing. People who are shaken by them to the core, and feel the crushing need to talk about them publicly, are more likely to be on an ego trip, processing the horrors for the first time, or outright malicious, rather than actually working to spark positive change. 

Some people might even object to the idea of positive change in this context. "We just need to talk about it" "This is what is really happening" "We must free Palestine, they are committing atrocious war crimes and enacting genocide!" were the general sentiments. I can see where they are coming from, but these sentiments are more histerical than helpful. These sentiments are the reason why the internet is no longer a safe place for people to connect over. The truth is, this is an extremely sensitive situation. Israel is a nuclear armed country. As hard as it is to get through our skulls, every single person cannot participate in every single battle. A public domain like Instagram, is not the place to discuss these issues. 

It's good to have discussions, dialogue, and news coverage on actual history in the making, but some lines should never be crossed. I think it would be helpful for everyone involed, to be informed and have conversations, but keep it to themselves unless it actually fucking helps. Trying to put pressure on global leaders to engage in foreign disputes, that's what the news and international courts are for. It might be super hip and trendy right now to challenge authority, but if there's one good thing I've learned from living in India, it's to keep your mouth shut unless you can do better than the ones you are so thoughtlessly critisizing. 

This belief in the purity of being within your "rights" to speak your truth and hold people accountable, it's as simple and ugly as letting the power of having a platform get to your primitive animalistic head. The people crying out in anguish over these events and demanding things from world leaders are already corrupted with what little power they have as a part of "the right side." All the entitlement, none of the excrutiatingly painstaking effort required in sorting out what's essentialy a tangled up rope which has rustly nails and shards of glass in between its fibers. Knowing the sensitivity of the issues, I commend the people facing them head-on anyway. 

There is indeed great bravely and nobility in the causes they have chosen. Yet never should they forget the weight of those battles. If you are to succeed as a peace officer, you need to be adequately prepared to rise up to meet the situation. Fighting evil and violence is no laughing matter. It's not as simple as sharing disturbing images, rallying votes, and raising funds. You have to engage with these things from a place of extraordinary purity, light, and compassion. Fail, and you end up as cannon fodder, nothing more than kindling for the fire. It's not for everyone, and everyone should not try to make it theirs.

Here's another truth worth considering: You cannot beat tyranny with tyranny. But how do you beat tyranny anyway? The answer to that, is in the roots of the problem. I certainly do not care to find out what necessitates or allows such horrors to thrive for today. But to those who can stomach it, that's where they will find the answers. Addressing the root issues are the only way to eradicate these big issues. But the status quo will always fight with all its might to maintain it's position. What is a lone individual to do? The only logical way to win, seems like playing the long run. When the more intellectual blacks saw the injustice of their situation, they did not start a revolt. Instead, they bode their time and left their future in the hands of their children. 

Maybe it's hard to apply that to the global unrest we are facing right now, it's a tough time to be in, global unrest has been the trend of the decade. Plus, I honestly have no idea about what is happening between Israel and Palestine, but it doesn't seem like many other people understand it very well either. I just know that no matter what happens, real positive change happens from the bottom up. Opression, dictatorship, genocide, and war are big things that involve millions of people. I haven't the slightest notion how to deal with those things, and too many cooks spoil the broth. I have faith in the very talented and knowledgable experts that are right on top of the situation. I leave it in their capable hands. 

In the meantime, all I can do is take care of myself and those around me. I suggest more people to do the same. Even if war and hellfire were to rain down tomorrow, I don't imagine anything else I would be capable of doing. I'm sure many people also have productive things that they can actually engage with and make a difference in. It's hard to live your whole life knowing that war is bad, and then sitting by and watching it unfold on an unprecidented scale. But life is hard. We have to deal with things as they come and learn to live on inspite of them, if not because of. Stopping on the side of the road on your journey to witness a great horror is fine enough. But abandoning your life to pick up the pieces is tantamount to running away from your responcibilities. 

Everyone is free to choose their battles for themselves, but they have to muster up the conviction to see them through to the end. And I can only hope that they become aware of the recklessness in trying to distract other strangers from their own journies once they make that choice. The day I will release my work for the public, I too shall ask attention from strangers, but I shall remember to make it a choice, and not a forecful gun to their heads. And that's all thanks to that shrapnel baby, and the man who decided to share it without warning.