No More Urgency pt. 2
Thoughts on Emptiness and Importance
“It is passivity that dulls feeling.” — Susan Sontag
Witnessing calamity on a massive, immediate scale is exhausting. I don’t think I need to point out how close the pandemic brought suffering to very many or how quickly social media connects us to the suffering of others in places never visited. I remember discovering this powerlessness watching the siege of Holms, Syria. Seeing Instagram posts of people perhaps moments before dying was intense.
The same has compounded in recent years. That is a deliberate choice of words, compounded, because it seems that things have become even worse over the last several years. Need I list them?
Because our sense of compassion is scorched right now, it is difficult to believe in urgency anymore. But it does not also mean the end of importance.
As I read this situation, the best way forward now is to play the long game: a deliberate, studied foresight such that there is no need for urgency anyway. Careful planning can be a way to move through life again that could resist the pull of urgency and its eventual emptiness.
There are still important things to hold on to and to hold close.
More soon,
Trevor