my tears don't mean shit to you aka empathy erosion in the modern world.

Empathy in today's modern world is like a gorgeous gem hidden in a pool of dull, dim, and ruthless rocks.

We have forgotten how to value, understand, and safeguard the feelings and situations of our fellow humans.

We have become one of the worst attainable states, prone to self-destruction and the debris of humanity.

We have finally achieved the subliminal spirit of selfishness.

How reassuring!

We have tamed the wildness of greed and self-absorption, jailed sympathy, and definitely buried the body of empathy deep down inside ourselves, where it continues to rot beneath layers of convenience and indifference; where it's rotting in our OWN flesh.

“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”
― Walt Whitman

Man, you know what?

To bloody hell with sounding metaphorically poised.

I don't always want to be linguistically elegant.
I don't always want to package my anger in polished English or fancily wrap my frustration in pretty metaphors or be a poshly splendid verbal vault.

Sometimes I just want to be messy.
I want to yap.
I want to scream.
I want words to stumble over each other because that's exactly what emotions do.

Honestly, I am so over crying.

I am so over all this bs that's going on.

Who the hell am I even crying for?

The tears that fall like rain from the clouds of my sky, only end up drenching me...this rain isn't universal, it's individual.

Rain is supposed to touch everyone beneath it. Mine never seems to leave my own and that's exactly how empathy has become in the modern world. A jest, a jeer, a damn joke.

GOSH I am fed up with people, their actions, and them entirely. AND THESE PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME CRY? THEY DON'T CARE so SOMEBODY EXPLAIN TO ME why the bloody hell do my eyes care ughhhh!

There are two types of crying I do.

Cathartic Crying (CC):
The kind that cleans the windows of my soul.

Outward-Fuelled Hurt Crying (OFHC):
The kind caused by people who probably won't even remember they made me cry.

Cathartic crying?

Absolutely.

Outward-fuelled hurt crying?

Hard pass.

CC is a yay.

OFHC is a no.

Essentially, the idea for this post came to mind when it hit me how truly devastating and morbid not only the state of the world has become, but also the state of the very souls of humanity.

An utter disgrace.

AKA how humans have become IMMENSELY selfish, greedy, and narcissistic pieces of S H I T! How delightful :D

It feels as though empathy is becoming an endangered species.

I might display an undertone of pessimistic idealism and moral pompousness

In other words, I am going to sound fed up cause i am...

But correct me if I am wrong -

When was the last time you could, without thinking twice, trust somebody?

When was the last time you were emotionally comfortable opening up to somebody?

When was the last time you bawled your eyes out in front of your loved ones, not impulsively but rather willingly?

When was the last time you truly listened to somebody, not to respond, but simply to understand with full sincerity?

When was the last time you DIDN'T judge somebody quickly but rather tried to understand what they are going through?

WHEN WAS IT WHEN YOU PUT YOURSELF ASIDE FOR A MOMENT AND THOUGHT ABOUT SOMEBODY'S PLIGHT, EARNESTLY? WHEN WAS IT WHEN SOMEBODY DID THAT FOR YOU?

Well...if your answers include some concrete and hopeful optimsim - that's lovely, and I am glad for you, but unfortunately, in this sadistic world oozing with brutality, it's not the case for everybody, and it's very easy to lose compassion; once you lose it- no matter how many times you scream its name to find it, it will choose to stay hidden. AKA EVEN EMPATHY HAS A TOLERANCE LEVEL.

Not because there's something wrong with you (maybe? maybe not?) but because:

Compassion is scared; it's been abused, exploited, and tormented.

And now, after countless minutes, hours, days, years of suffering:

It's finally eroding and fading away into the oblivion of fear.

People become scared to be compassionate.

Because how can one survive in a surrounding, when the surrounding itself is a poison which is deemed normal?

aka desensitisation has become a normal occurrence in the contemporary world wrt being empathetic as a human being.

Not that people are evil.

Not that nobody cares.

But that we're living through an era of empathy inflation.

Every day we scroll past war.

Floods.

Domestic violence.

Assault.

Children starving.

People dying.

A celebrity breakup.

A funny cat.

Another tragedy.

An advertisement.

Everything arrives in the same feed, asking for the same amount of attention.

Eventually, the nervous system starts protecting itself.

Not because we're monsters.

Because it can't emotionally survive caring about everything.

The fear of the monster not only your soul has become yet also of the souls of others.

Now, I am not saying that you become a morally sagacious epitome of utmost compassionate conduct and altruism. In that case, you won't ever survive in the real world. But what I am saying is grow a fucking spine for God's sake.

Don't be so mentally shut off from the emotions and the well-being of others that normal acts such as -

Your loved ones being genuinely glad for you, talking to someone without checking your phone every 2 minutes, keeping the elevator on hold, someone literally asking you how you are feeling and what they can do to help you out, opening the door for someone, saving a seat for someone, remembering tiny details, and being on time because you actually respect the company and not solely due to punctuality, including people in group convesration and activities, i.e. not making them feel left out, thanking your transport drivers and daily help, letting someone with one item go ahead of you in a long queue, picking up a piece of litter even though you didn't drop it, saying "good morning" to security guards, janitors, cleaners, receptionists, and others whom people often look through rather than at, and genuinely trying to understand somebody and what they are going through rather than being narcisstic assholes!

Start feeling like a surreal and bizarre delusion.

That's when you know something is absolutely wrong.

Like it absolutely infuriates me how cold and selfish people have become.

How they'll do anything to keep moving ahead.

How they'll bloody their hands.

How they'll put others down just so they can go up.

They'll kill anyone and anything that comes in their way

And the killing doesn't always have to be literal (wow, no shit sherlock!)

BTW imagine being the cause of somebody's tears - ew. ew. ew.

Goshhhhhh why the fuck don't people understand??

Can you like not realise the entire world doesn't revolve around you for FUCK'S SAKE?

Also, crying to release your pent-up emotions and frustration is totally okay, as it helps heal. Healing crying is underrated! CRY IF YOU FEEL BETTER AFTERWARDS. I do this a lot, and this is NOT a sign of weakness.

BUT Outward fuelled hurt crying. OMG I AM SO DONE WITH THIS.

Like, at times I will cry if people have hurt me, but how much water can I even spend on these damn cacti now??

Like it's fine to cry to release all these feelings and let them go, but if these people continually keep hurting you, I do not think it's worth spending all my precious bittersweet tears on them.

LIKE I AIN'T CRYING OVER YOU ANYMORE. SO KISS MY ASS.

Perhaps that's the tragedy.

We aren't born emotionally unavailable.

We become that way.

Every betrayal teaches someone to trust a little less.
Every dismissal teaches someone to speak a little less.
Every "you're overreacting" teaches someone to feel a little less.

Empathy doesn't vanish.
It erodes.

On a serious note, my dear stars, don't cry over people who aren't worth it. honestly! DO NOT LET THE SAME SNAKE BITE YOU TWICE. Like people will see you are hurt cause of them, but they will BRUSH IT OFF.

remember:

crying is divine.

that's why you have tear glands to cry, to be divine. 🙄

so cry when your soul needs washing.

cry when healing asks you to.

cry because you are human.

just don't keep watering people who mistake your tears for rain they'll never have to stand under.

NOW - I haven't completely lost hope in empathy!!!

Soooooo what happened?

it was 7:43 in the mornin, and my school bus comes at 7:40. I missed the bus by 1 minute, and even me screaming out loud, "WAIT WAIT SHIT SHIT SHIT WAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIT UGHHHH," couldn't reach the bus's ears. So I did what any normal person in my situation would. I chased it down to the next stop. I ran like I had never before. Ngl, I bet I could have beaten Usain Bolt that day if we had a race. Anyways, not gonna boast, but yeah. Alright, so I ran 700 m, I think, and I almost reached the bus. It was waiting at another stop, but it was still 200 m fucking away. Looking back, people were looking at me like I was crazy. I mean, I am crazy, but I was more in a frenzy that day. Anyways, I was looking at the distance between me and my bus (this is called yearning, read and learn, guys), and I was panting, and my knees were jelly for sure, but I still tried. See, the word is tried. And then I started to run again..... Now I was only 100 m away from my yellow lover, but then the true villain of our story (like hello? This love story needs a backstory and some plot twist) entered. I tripped and fell over this stupid-ass rock.

FAHHHHhhhhhhH! The aura loss was insane :(

lowkey though, I was on the ground, my knees were scraped, and this man was laughing. LIKE THE AUDACITY??? Anyways, I didn't have time to waste. I still had 100 m, and the bus was almost about to leave.

THEN CAME TO MY RESCUE AN ANGEL IN DISGUISE. A SAINT SENT FROM GOD. A DEUS EX MACHINA. Or a possible kidnapper.

This lady who had just dropped her kid off on her scooty saw me miserably trying to catch up, and more than empathy, I think she just wanted me to stop embarrassing myself, so she offered me a ride on her scooter. I thought for one second. Like ONE SECOND. Hey Mary, this could be your end, yk? How you get kidnapped? But I was like, nah, F it. And thankfully, she was just this wholesome, kind lady who did, in fact, help me reach my bus just 1 second before it was about to leave.

MY GOD. I screamed thank you to her as loud as I could! Like, God bless her!

She didn't know my name.

She didn't owe me anything.

She didn't stop to calculate whether helping me was worth her time.

She simply saw another human struggling...

...and she helped.

That is empathy.

SO YES GUYS BE THAT LADY IN SOMEONE'S LIFE. BE EMPATHETIC, AND BE A SYMBOL OF HOPE.

Or else you will become unrecognisable to yourselves, a self-absorbed monster whose compassion has eroded. Don't make others cry, and if you are the reason, go fucking console them and be there for them. Instead of judging people and being blatantly presumptuous, listen, communicate, and maybe even for one second, don't think about only you.

At first, empathy was formless and transparent for me, but now it's yellow and in the shape of a scooty. 🔆

Until then,

With all the yellow scooty love i can muster 😋

XOXO,

MaryTheLamp 🧚‍♀️