#original photograhers

[dochuff]

Restaurant,

Small Town Tokyo: Yutenji

[zeljkorukavina]

[duxuebing]

Photography by Xuebing Du

Instagram: xuebing.du

[annapolisrose]

Nothing but country scenes from me right now.

[cameragirlkatesblog-blog]

[honeyedlens]

Goldenrod Crab Spider on a Sunflower

September 2023

by Brie Thomson

[francoise-larouge]

Paysage urbain Paris 20-Novembre-2022©FrançoiseLarouge

[nostalgiaforinfinity]

let's dance

[reality-inflicted]

À la recherche des crises perdues.

How do you feel, really? 

This is not a rhetorical question, I am genuinely interested. If you read this text I’d love it if you left a comment, it would be interesting to hear your thought regarding all the crises that surround us daily and the impact they have on you. 

Earlier this morning (Sunday, February 5, 2023) I noticed a headline in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet about (yet another) emerging diplomatic crisis between USA and China. This time in the aftermath of the US shooting down an alleged ”spy balloon” launched by China. Now, I found this interesting as I thought I’d noticed a similar crisis just yesterday, that time in connection to the fact that the balloon was where it, at the time, were.  

This got me thinking about if crisis is relative or static, I mean – is a crisis only a crisis in relation to itself, or can a specific crisis be a part of a larger crisis? Or are crisis fundamentally exponential? I mean, looking at how the word ”crisis” is commonly used and the meaning with which it is loaded that seems to be the case: a small crisis, a crisis, a local crisis, a regional crisis, a big crisis, an enormous crisis – the ”holyfuckweareallgonnadie!”-crisis seem to imply a situation where the imminent level of Crisis in any given instance of crisis seem to increase in relation to itself. 

I decided to do a quick investigation regarding how ”crisis” have been reported in Swedish newspaper media over the last 60 years. I went to do a search in a Royal Library database that index newspapers as far back as the year 1600 (if you want to check it out, go to Kungliga Biblioteket) and i found the embryo of what could be an interesting trend: the progressive escalation of Crisis. Starting from todays date i did a search covering a period of eight days starting in 1963 and ending with 2022. The only word is used was ”kris” (Swedish for crisis). The results came back as follows:

1963-01-27 – 1963-02-04: 51 hits 1973-01-27 – 1973-02-04: 69 hits 1983-01-27 – 1983-02-04: 122 hits 1993-01-27 – 1993-02-04: 233 hits 2003-01-27 – 2003-02-04: 84 hits 2013-01-27 – 2013-02-04: 314 hits (2020-01-27 – 2020-02-04: 952 hits) 2022-01-27 – 2022-02-04: 463 hits (2022-07-27 – 2022-08-04: 874 hits)

The dates within (parenthesis) were made to 1) the start of the Covid pandemic and 2) to include the Russian war in Ukraine which began after the initial search of 2022, in order to simulate a possible usage of crisis for 2023 that is not yet available to search in the Royal library database. 

 Removing the outlier (2003) there is a clear trend indicating that the number of crisis have increased over the last 60 years. Even if we remove some of the hits, during 1973 some of the hits were in relation to the artist Kris Kristofferson, and during 1993 some were in relation to Swedish comedians (and I use this word in the loosest possible meaning) Stefan and Krister. Also, in astrology the star sign Sagittarius, for an undisclosed reason, seemed to be in a state of crisis.

When we talk about emotions we often mention empathy. As the word is commonly used it has become a sort of mix between two closely related words – empathy and sympathy. Empathy is the ability, or ”emotion” that allow you to understand the way another person thinks and feels and connect with them whilst still keeping your own emotions separate from the interaction. Basically, empathy is ”understanding what someone feels”. Sympathy, on the other hand, constitutes a form of active participation in the emotions of the other person and tying them, in a sense, to oneself. Or to put it a bit clearer: ”I feel what you feel”.  

Personally I’ve noticed that I to quite a large degree have lost the ability to care, especially in relation to crises as reported by media. I connect this in part to the fact that we are living in a state of permanent crisis, a state that keeps intensifying. Why should I care about something that will be over with and replaced by something else tomorrow? The problem with this ”blunting” of emotions is that they are not confined to crisis in the media. I find it increasingly difficult to muster any sense of real emotion in situations that really should trigger an emotional response. Intellectually I can understand and relate to what is happening in, for example Ukraine and Iran, ideologically and morally I can relate to what is right and wrong in a given situation – but I am struggling with the emotional and sympathetic aspects of this. It takes a conscious effort to react accordingly. I don’t feel the suffering of others, which don’t mean that i don’t understand that they are suffering.  

During the 60’s and 70’s there were more space in society to share in the suffering of others – often with underlying political purposes. The anti-war movement and the emerging environmental movement originated in a time where the number of simultaneous crises were relatively few, allowing them to grow to a scale large enough to drive political and personal engagement. Today, in the state of constant crisis, this space no longer exist. The sympathy has been replaced with empathy for good and for bad. 

On the empathic level I can understand that the anger and fear of  the threat of a looming climate disaster would drive people to super glue themselves to roads or throw baked beans on a work of art, but I lack the sympathetic ability to share this anger and fear. I don’t think that it require any wider experience within the fields of psychology or sociology to reach the conclusion this deficiency in me might in part be related to the current media state of perpetual crisis. And at the same time the opposite is true – that the perpetual crisis lead to a state of increased stress and a loss of wellbeing for a lot of people around the world. 

Most people can handle the stress that arise in relation to news events. They see the causes, analyse what is going on and move on with their lives. For others it cause increased levels of stress, stress that if left to itself can slide into worry about the self and the future. This worry might in turn lead to fear which can lead to anger. And anger, as any fan of Star Wars well know, can lead to the Dark Side.

I am not saying that the news alone are to blame for this development, and especially in relation to me. That I am ”the way I am” depends on a whole bunch of things, most of which are related to me (it would be strange otherwise). Another is the rise of new and more efficient ways to share events as they take place around the world. But regardless of this, I would think it very interesting to see if there is a connection between the constant state of crisis in media and a loss of the ability to really care.

I mean, one just get so tired of it all.

p.s I’ve decided to open an account on buymecoffee, in case anyone would like to follow me there. Naturally, this will be my main page, but I will try to post some longer pieces of writing there eventually both to reduce ramblings here and to perhaps get increased interaction with those of you that don’t consider my ramblings to be irritating at best. :) just click here to get to my page. I just created the page, so please bear with me, I’ll get some perks set up as well. I just have to... do... some stuff... first. //Jimmy 

[rinibayphoto]

[the-land-of-broken-promises]

Sunset never fails to take my breath away but natures beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder🌅

[dochuff]

Another Day at the Man-made Beach:

Back before the beach had a large section converted to a volley ball court.

Odaiba Beach, Tokyo

[nosealviewing]

Reflection - J. Paul Getty Center, Los Angeles CA

©2022 by John A. Royston - Nosealviewing™ All rights reserved

[debunkshy]

Indian Pink Spigelia marilandica Ballard WMA, KY 11 June 2022

[annapolisrose]

Twelve Spotted Skimmer (the same individual in each instance.)

[cameragirlkatesblog-blog]