Images

As I continue to watch, listen to, and digest the ongoing coverage of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami (does it have an official name yet?) I am struck by the seeming unreality of it all.

This is one of the difficulties of the modern world: we have become so visually dependent (and visually stimulated) that we can become unmoved to visuals of what we see occurring. It seems unreal: like a movie or video game we watch for entertainment.

A simple example: yesterday I watched a six minute video of the tsunami as it hit a town. The water continues to rush in, rising, then it starts to bring other things in: boxes, cars and trucks, a fishing boat, and finally the houses themselves are lifted off their foundations and carried away. An entire town, ruined. The lives of individuals, individuals like me, either destroyed or changed forever.

I hit stop on the video. I go outside to rake leaves in the yard. The sun is shining, it's 70 F, I open a cold beer before I start raking in the evening light with the birds singing. The whole thing seems unreal to me. I can sense the enormity of what I have seen but it doesn't seem to affect me the way I think it should.

I look around this morning as I type: my lights continue to run, the clock-ticking silence is unbroken by the sounds of sleeping family members, my coffee is hot in my hand. Meanwhile, survivors have entered Day 4 of freezing temperatures and uncertain food/water supplies - and in some cases, fears of radiation.

I don't know what to make of this entry fully, even as I don't know how to fully resolve this dichotomy in my spirit. Have we become so used to images being used to entertain that they no longer have the ability to evoke?