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I would argue the original question from the start. Your statement of "why is it so hard to see suffering" I don't find to be entirely accurate. I believe everyone sees other people suffering every single day, and yet it is easy to turn a blind eye to those who are suffering.

It all comes down to empathy. Does whatever the person is suffering from or because of resonate with the individual who sees it? The closer an individual can relate to someone else's suffering, the stronger the empathy, the more likely it is that the individual will do something about it. It is all about emotions.

For example, think of people in Ukraine. Specifically in the Crimea area. Those people who have lost quite a lot just because of an international disagreement on who owns that land. Some people have had to flee their homes because it is too dangerous, and they have had to give up everything they knew and flee. Or people from Syria who are experiencing a similar thing. While we would all agree that this isn't good, I think you'd also find there are quite a lot of people who would not give it a second thought. Because it is so far away, and not very many people from Canada know what it is like to be forced to give up everything you know because of some outside force that is not able to be controlled.

Next think of what happened in early April of this year. A bus carrying a team full of spry young teenagers was t-boned by a semi at an intersection on the highway. This incident resonated with many people, lots of people gave money, shelter, food, whatever they could to help. Many tears were shed, and quite a number of things are changing now due to that collision. People still talk about it, and Humboldt Strong stickers are everywhere. This happened closer to where most Canadians live, and everyone recalls riding a bus as a child or teenager. And the fact it was a hockey team makes it resonate even more with Canadians. It hits closer to home, because it can be related to by many.

Ultimately, every person on a deeper level knows that they can't help everyone who is suffering, it just isn't possible. And there have been enough scams that people are wary of such as well. Therefore, it is only what really hits us hard, those things which can be related to on a personal level, that we really notice and jump into action for.

Now in none of this do I discount the option that people might go to help the suffering of someone purely so that they can look better. But these instances of prideful helping of others are not too common. Normally there is always some small amount of empathy in every act of kindness given to someone in need.

I will disclaim this that I have attempted to share my thoughts on the matter in a way that explains my point and yet does it without offending anyone or causes emotions to run wild. If I have offended you in any way, please understand I didn't mean it to. I recognize that I myself have not been able to explain my thoughts to perfection, and that there may be a few flaws within my argument or examples. Please forgive me for those.

I think you nailed it, Mann. It oddly reminds me of a Mel Brooks quote, though: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."

The further removed you are from a situation, the more abstract it becomes and the easier it is to ignore. Add to it the scamming that you mentioned and its easy to ignore or wipe our hands of a problem. It leads to thoughts like, "Why should we pay for HIV medicine for Africans? Most of the money will be lost to corruption!"

I think it's far too easy to turn off the empathy center of our brain. We know people are suffering. We know that even if 20 cents on the dollar (more? less?) will be lost to corruption that's still 80 cents going to saving a life. But if something - be it HIV, war, or bankrupting for profit health care... - doesn't impact you/your family or the community directly, it's out of sight, out of mind.

I'd like to think it's due to instinct. By hoarding we increased our chance of surviving long winters, poor crops, etc. Sharing put everyone at risk. But that's not the case anymore. Economically wealthy countries could and should be doing more to help out those less fortunate than us. And while we can blame recent history there's certainly a case to be made that European colonization has a far ranging long term impact, including ones that we happened to benefit from (even if we want to say it's only because of the hard work our family members put into building our country). We have a goal of just 0.7% of GDP for foreign aid and we don't even hit half of it!

Surely we could probably spare a bit more cash to help out. Closer to home, I don't know how much it would cost to provide all homeless people with a place to stay and access to good mental health care and drug rehab but when you look at how much we spend on hockey tickets, we're not lacking for disposable cash.

I agree. I think/believe the reason why we lack the level of empathy required is 2 fold. We feel we lack too much to be worrying about others. (lol) and our society teaches us to block what brings us down.

Everyone talks about what happens around them and we all decide through our regular discussions what is the best practice surrounding said conversations. Way more intricate than that but i'm pretty sure concept is understood. surely i'm not the only one who sees it.

one thing i'm proud of though is that Canada is known world wide for having the most empathy/humanness.lol. Even here on line.lol. Canada is awesome!
Media/news is not.

What i mean by 'discussions decide our practice' is...If we hear "It's OK" enough times we start to believe It's OK and upon acceptance of this repeated statement we start practicing "its OK" as a rule in our lives

We live our lives by way of majority rules concept like lemmings because of our conditioning. Oh man! I could go on on this topic. So many facets involved..how do we stop the lemming mentality? And do we want to? Are we better people over all without it, or are majority of populous narcissists at heart with a need for heard mentality?

You seem a true example of what human beings should be embracing the likeness of conceptually speaking. Bless you for your wisdom, compassion, and experience. You rock!

I find it usually takes a lot of suffering and introspection to fully realize the truth of which you speak. May your days be filled with reward from the kindness you bring to others.

If you want your mind bent a bit go read "The Human Condition".

My opinion involves the train wreck effect. Two trains on the same track collide. Fire! Explosions! Cars tossed about! People screaming and crying! What do the majority of people passing by do? Stop and stare! Autos on a parallel road crash into each other because drivers cannot avert their eyes from the chaos. It repels but at the same time is impossible to ignor.

So the great majority of us go through life as observers. Never taking action beyond muttering under our breath "Thank God I didn't take the train today." and hoping no one heard us.

I totally agree. this is the way of society in our day and age. It is a concept I find terrifying wake up with chills and cold sweat. (kidding. I don't wake up.) seriously though. The mindset turns my stomach..

Seem to recall that title. Sucks that my brain is so turned off of reading and writing. used to be pretty good when I was small. I have tonnes of great books but never pick them up. One of my fave is The Peaceful Warrior. They later made a movie based on it as well.