The World is Dark and Full of Terrors
Or, thoughts on coping with all the bad things in the world
At its best, working in journalism offers a clear, if challenging, path to a fulfilling life. Journalists gather and synthesize information in an attempt to help others understand the world around them. Sometimes this means exposing corruption and betrayals of public trust. Sometimes it’s exploring aspects of health and wellness to help people navigate their physical and mental well-being. Other times, it’s recording events for the more routine, but no less important, purpose of leaving an account for future generations. In each of these examples (and the many more I don’t have space to enumerate), there’s a sense that what we are doing is bigger than ourselves; we are working towards making the world better. We often get to work in teams and with a fair degree of autonomy. Of course, not every publication and every newsroom is like this, but the potential is there.
There is a darker side to the news business, though, that has nothing to do with terrible employers or working in an industry that feels at odds with the incentives of our economic system. Good journalism by definition brings you in contact with the ugly, cruel, unmerciful, selfish, horrific sides of human nature. Much of our attention is currently focused on atrocities in Ukraine, but there is also genocide in Yemen, attacks on LGBTQ+ youth in many states all over the United States, and fears that reproductive freedom will be rolled back by a conservative Supreme Court. One of the darkest realizations during the COVID-19 pandemic was that the lull in school shootings was only because students weren’t in school.
In short, there are a thousand bad things happening at every moment, and as journalists, we run towards those bad things. And I’m sure this is the case for any number of other professions.
This constant exposure to the worst elements of human nature, whether you’re producing content about it or consuming it, can affect people in many different ways. Some grow callous and unfeeling. They acclimate to the badness and, after a while, it triggers little to no emotional response. Some learn to suppress their emotions in an effort to do their job objectively. But at least in my experience, a far more common effect is to struggle to find any solace in a world where misery is abundant and hope is in short supply. The good things I mentioned above about journalism are called into question: Are we really having an effect on the world, or is this all for nought? Is the bad winning? Or worse, has it already won?
How we, as intrinsically social creatures, can find happiness while being aware that others are suffering is a question fundamental to the human condition. One of the central objectives of Rhapsody is to explore the interplay between individuals and social contexts to better understand how those contexts support or thwart well-being, which in turn can help us to lead happier lives as individuals and to create more supportive societal environments.
It’s not unique to any one profession, one political affiliation, or any group. It’s a human predicament.
So how do we cope? Is it selfish to be happy while people are dying in Ukraine? Is it selfish to unplug from news and ignore all the bad things? Should we donate everything we have to charity and take up an ascetic life? I have some thoughts:
It’s okay to feel bad.
This is the most important thing, in my opinion. You have to allow yourself to feel sad, frustrated, helpless, small, or insignificant. It’s a natural human reaction to see others hurting and in pain and to share that pain yourself. That’s what compassion is—a specific kind of empathy that enables us to feel the suffering of others and a desire to help them alleviate that suffering.
Compassion isn’t just an abstraction, either. It’s a feeling that arrises from one of the brain’s three motivational systems—the “tend-and-befriend” system. The pituitary gland releases oxytocin, which produces feelings of compassion, which is one reason oxytocin is sometimes called “the love hormone.”
There’s a problem with the tend-and-befriend system, though. It’s often overridden by the other two motivational systems, the fight-or-flight system and the drive system. Often when faced with something threatening or painful, our instinct quite literally is to fight it or run from it. Separately, when the needs of others stand in the way of our ambition or “drive” to achieve, there’s an inclination to prioritize our own goals.
Research shows that acting with compassion is linked with happiness and well-being. Modern society is built on the assumption that competition is our natural state and that competing forces will naturally lead to better products, better services and a generally better society, but we’re innately suited to help each other. Suppressing this urge to numb the pain risks removing an important aspect of what it means to be human.
Take care of yourself.
There’s a difference between accepting sadness as a regular and integral part of life and ignoring self-care entirely. Self-care means different things for different folks, and it’s important to keep in mind that only you can really understand the kind of care you need. This feels like a good time to remind everyone I’m just a guy who wants to help people live happier, more fulfilling lives—not a licensed therapist or psychologist. If you are really struggling, I’d encourage you to find a professional who can help you. 1
In this context, the kind of self-care I’m interested in is self-compassion. As I said above, often our compassion-enabling, tend-and-befriend system can get overridden when we feel threatened. This can lead to a witch’s brew of harmful reactions: self-criticism, when we turn our anger or feeling of inadequacy against ourselves; self-isolation, when we simply want to get away from everything that frightens us and we retreat into ourselves; and self-absorption, when we immerse ourselves in some event or action and are paralyzed to do anything else but obsess over it.
Cultivating self-compassion isn’t about chasing away bad feelings. It’s about learning to accept them. It’s prioritizing comforting yourself in the same way you’d prioritize comforting someone you care about. It’s about understanding and accepting that everyone deals with feelings of insecurity, loneliness, and hurt.
I struggle with all of these things. I’m no different than anyone else. However, practicing mindfulness has helped me immensely2. There are various types of meditation I try to practice regularly that are explicitly intended to develop self-kindness. One of them is called “loving-kindness practice,” or Metta, which means “loving-kindness” in Pali. (I’m fairly certain this is where Metta World Peace, aka Ron Artest, got his name.) And I cannot stress enough that there is a ton of research that supports the effects these kinds of mindfulness practices have on your well-being.
A final point: Self-compassion is not narcissism. Making everything about you in some fashion isn’t self-compassion, and self-compassion isn’t the same as making everything about you. Learning the difference is a key skill in and of itself. In fact, self-compassion is the first step towards helping others. Much in the same way an airline tells you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping other passengers, acts of self-compassion enable you to be wholly present and available to assist and support others. You’re better able to empathize and respond to needs because others’ suffering and anguish is more familiar.
Stay present.
We didn’t evolve to have a good time, we evolved to survive. Our brains see threats all over the place, and they aren’t very good at evaluating which threats are real and which are imagined, nor the severity of those threats. This is our fight-or-flight response in action. It would be better to just run from a supposed lion than to wait and make sure it’s not actually a tree stump and die.
Our brain’s cortex is constantly evaluating past and potential future events, figuring out ways to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. This means that extremely painful or pleasurable events stick with us longer and seem to stand out more than ordinary events. And the very bad can dominate the very good. We call this the negativity bias. An example of negativity bias is how negative political ads are far more effective than positive political ads, and also basically Facebook’s entire business model. A more personal example is how we tend to dwell on mistakes or embarrassing things that happened to us in the past. While you’re still hung up on the ridiculous things you did when you drank a bit too much, everyone else is…hung up on the ridiculous things they did when they drank too much. In short: Things are generally neither as bad as they seem or as good they seem, but somewhere in the middle. You definitely did some embarrassing things, but so did everyone else, and nobody cares.
When I say “stay present,” what I mean is this: When we have an awareness of how our brain creates narratives to help us survive, we can counterbalance this unpleasantness by reminding ourselves that various emotional states come and go. Our bodies are going through biochemical processes to help us survive. We can learn to let go of thoughts and emotions that frighten us and focus our attention not on the past and not on the future, but on this very moment. In this way, we can escape the constant narrative that may help us evolutionarily but in contemporary times, causes us to obsess and catastrophize situations.
But most important: We can literally just focus on what is happening right now. That person talking to you? Actually try to listen to everything they say without your mind wandering. Watch a movie without looking at your phone. Read a book and immerse yourself in what’s happening in the book.
Sorrow has no hierarchy.
In The New Pope3, John Malkovich plays Sir John Brannox, who is elected to the papacy and takes the name Pope John Paul III. He gives a speech that I have watched countless times, mostly because I think it’s a good speech but also because Malkovich is simply very good at speaking. This is one line I think about often:
“Sorrow has no hierarchy. Suffering is not a sport—there is no final ranking.
When human sorrow and misery make headlines these days, there’s a rush to do something about it, and for a brief period of time it’s as if there is nothing else in the world that matters. This singular focus can give the impression that if you aren’t doing everything you can to help on this issue, then you are a bad person. It in no way diminishes the pain and suffering of those suffering in Ukraine to help someone in your own neighborhood or someone you love who is struggling. There are more people that need help than there are people willing to help, and any good you do for anyone is something that you should be proud of and take satisfaction in—with one enormous caveat.
To be crystal clear: This isn’t some kind of mental well-being cap and trade deal. I’m not saying “Well, I donated to the United Way last week, so I think I’m okay with helping Ukraine.” As a general principle, helping people when you have the means is a good thing. I’m simply saying that the world doesn’t actually lurch from one bad thing to the next. If you feel like you can’t do anything to help Ukraine, don’t diminish the good you can do for other people in your life.
There’s a cynical interpretation of Brannox that might sound something like this: “So are you saying that the pain from my hangnail is equivalent to the suffering of a mother whose child died when their home was blown up?” To which I’d say, don’t be a moron. The point is that we all suffer in one form or another, and trying place a value on one kind of sorrow in relation to another isn’t helpful. What’s helpful is simply the acknowledgement that suffering is universal.
Think and act sustainably.
There are very few problems that can be solved in one news cycle. As this Neiman Lab piece points out, ”The news industry was quick to hire for diversity-focused roles after George Floyd’s murder in 2020—but sustaining that change has proven slow and challenging.” Further down the article, there’s another quote: “The real solution is to devote more energy to the issue—by hiring additional race reporters and creating a sense of collective responsibility in the newsroom.”
The second quote was written by investigative journalist Barry Yeoman writing for Columbia Journalism Review…in 1998. If things have moved slow since 2020, imagine how slow they’ve moved since 1998.
Now, on one hand, this just reinforces the massive diversity problem the news industry faces. In the context of this article, however, it should serve as a reminder than early on in a crisis or tragedy, there’s often a flurry of activity, a mix of helpful, productive action and “I yearn to be seen” virtue signaling, and then everything tapers off as the masses move on to the next all-consuming catastrophe.
Of course there are times when urgency is paramount—sending aid, sheltering victims, reporting developments. However, I’d argue that it’s the systemic issues we face that require continued attention. Finding causes and issues on which you can sustainably contribute without abandoning your self-compassion can ameliorate that sense of ineffectiveness or isolation that may arise. In fact, inevitably with every monocultural cause, there comes a time when people begin asking, “Has the world moved on too quickly from [insert x]?” Tragedy often feels sudden. Sometimes it is. More often than not, it’s a breaking point only reached after many steps, and at each of these steps usually there are ways to help.
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It’s okay to feel bad about bad things happening in the world. It’s normal to want to help and experience legitimate suffering on behalf of other people, which can be compounded by shame over your inability to fully eliminate that suffering. Rather than suppress or ignore these emotions, it’s helpful to understand their origin and how they emerge psychologically. This awareness aids self-compassion, and self-compassion enables you to more effectively cope with difficult emotions and, as a result, better help others. Mindfulness practice is one way to manage these feelings by cultivating self-compassion and staying present. Finding sustainable ways to help others is a rewarding experience that can make us feel happier and more fulfilled in life. I hope this can help you to feel more effective in your efforts to help, more connected to people you care about, and more autonomous in your decision making. At the end of the day, we’re all connected, and there’s a never-ending feedback loop between our own well-being and the well-being of others.
There are many, many resources for getting started with mindfulness. This write up at Women’s Health lists several, Mindful has a ton of resources. I started after listening to a series of lectures by Dr. Ron Siegel. Any work by Jon Kabot-Zinn or Thich Nhat Hanh are also good places to begin. Siegel’s lecture series “The Science of Mindfulness- A Research-Based Path to Well-Being” helped me greatly with this essay. He is the man.
Sometimes, I think I’m the only person who watched The New Pope, but it’s awesome. So was The Young Pope. Also, anything by the guy who created both, Paolo Sorrentino, is worth watching.