Did you shed a tear while watching the Band of Brothers episode where the camps are liberated, only to then become the baker down the road?
It is apparently incredibly difficult for many of us to believe that the suffering of different-others is both real and unjustified. I believe, at least in part, that this is because it leads us to grief, guilt, and a feeling of powerlessness in a time when we already feel fearful of our own suffering.
Here's the shitty part, fam: You cannot shift suffering. Not by measuring worthiness, or assessing blame. Suffering is a circle. It grows, or it shrinks. If you are suffering, so, too, are others. Every move to alleviate that condition in others is simultaneously a move alleviate it for yourself. It will not do you any good to create or entrench enemy-others from your neighbors. It will do nothing to alleviate your pain and suffering. It's an ugly, short-term, pressure relief valve, but in the medium- and long-term, it will only create more division, more ugliness, more pain, and yes, more suffering.
The way out of your suffering is to go into the suffering of others. Not by avoiding, by othering or by shifting it. Don't look away. Don't allow your fear and suffering to make you cold, indifferent or tribalistic; or even worse, to take joy in the suffering of those even less fortunate than you. Open your eyes. Bear witness to the suffering of others. Weep with them and rejoice with them.
This is the only way out and through. We cannot remain strangers.
