This, increasingly, is the silent anthem of modern living. It’s not a boast—it’s an admission. A mantra whispered not out of cruelty but necessity.
Because the truth is, the human mind isn’t designed to hold this much grief.
There’s a name for it: compassion fatigue. When every headline screams injustice, we start to go numb. Not because we don’t care, but because we care too much, too often, with too little power to change the outcome.
So we filter. We compartmentalize. We look away. And here lies the ethical fracture:
Is it wrong to detach, to preserve our own mental well-being? Or is it the only way to stay sane in a world burning from every angle? We carry guilt for looking away, but dread the collapse that might follow if we didn’t.
Meanwhile, technology gives us the illusion of connection. A retweet. A signature. A post with a hashtag. We perform empathy, but often without cost. Visibility becomes a stand-in for action, and we comfort ourselves with symbols while the substance of change remains distant.
And yet—there’s something resilient in all this.
Perhaps our detachment isn’t just surrender, but adaptation. A new kind of endurance. By choosing when to look and how deeply to feel, we create emotional boundaries that let us continue living. We protect the fragile spaces where joy and hope can still bloom.
The challenge is this: to care enough. Enough to remain human. Enough to act when we can. Enough to let some wounds matter, even if we can’t carry them all.
Because the world is bleeding—but so are we. Survival, now, requires a delicate balance between compassion and self-preservation.
