COLUMN: I find your lack of empathy disturbing
The more I look at the world around me, the more distraught I get.
The sheer level of apathetic indifference toward people has been getting worse over the years and hardly anyone seems to notice.
Where this lack of empathy has been coming from recently has been rather bizarre, or least unexpected.
Friends, family, public leaders and notable celebrities who have been praised in the past for their charitable work have seemingly lost their ability to understand how people feel and what leads them to live their lives the way they do.
I’m not a normal student, I’m a relic from a time when trolls were only creatures that lived under a bridge, playing video games with a friend required being in the same room together and people were more likely to think before they said anything, because the person they were talking to was usually within punching distance.
I’m a student veteran who enlisted during the most turbulent time for the military since the Vietnam War, spending eight years exploring different cultures of the worlds and deploying twice in the process.
I learned a lot about humanity during my time in the service, but I learned more about the misconceptions and biases people hold over the military and other cultures.
Having been through countless events only a small portion of Americans have lived through, yet are seen daily in video games and movies, I can honestly say you don’t get it.
The random backlash over the film “American Sniper” alone tells me you don’t get it.
Out of every movie, television show and video game I have seen about the military and warfare, “American Sniper” is the closest film to get it completely right.
Perhaps some people chose to run their mouths about the film without even seeing it, which makes them worse: an uninformed rabble-rouser.
Perhaps the prevalence of shooter games flooding the market has made people forget that every shot fired is a potential death sentence for someone.
Or perhaps we're just living up to our own status quo of saying we care about people without actually caring about anyone.
People hated the war in Iraq but had no problem reelecting the decision makers who sent me there.
Never forget that humans have no natural predators, so we created one: ourselves.
Before opening your mouth or putting words on a page about something or someone who bugs you, take a step back for second and try to imagine what it is truly like to be in the other person’s shoes.
