Not too long ago my toddler son was hospitalised for a week due to viral infection. Alhamdulillah by the end of it all was well and he made full recovery.
For me & my wife, that was it was our first time dealing with such alarming experience. Must be more so for our kid. Seeing our son weak on the hospital bed, with high-flow nasal cannula and other sensors wired to him was utterly disheartening. I still remember how anxious I was whenever the vital monitor shows or beeps differently, and how desperate I was to make sure he got the best medical attention to the point I almost got into an altercation with one of the Paeds doctor. Then I realized - things that might make parents worried sick are perceived differently by Paeds doctors & nurses. While parents can be emotional, doctors & nurses are more methodical. To the Paeds, it's their everyday life, they've trained and experienced the same concerns 100000000 times. A lot of similar sick kid cases they need to attend to daily, while they try their best hospitals have limited resources. Every case is another number in the statistic. They've adjusted to it, they've become desensitised.
In one of my previous job, to get to office I need to stroll from Pasar Seni station across the sheltered walkway over the Klang river. If you a re familiar with the place, beggars and the homeless are a common sight along the walkway. It's difficult for me especially when I just started working there, I felt a roller coaster of emotions everyday walking through the walkway. The beggars, the homeless - they must be (or used to be) someone's loved ones, what's their hope and story, how they perceive and experience the world around them. One time, I saw one homeless, gaunt woman sitting by the walkway's railing and begging, with a small child on her lap sleeping. And another time, I saw an old homeless man begging while playing with his small kid both looking impoverished. These sights really messed me up and I felt a lump in my throat and had to turn away in guilt, because in my mind I actually saw the face of my own kid. The childhood experience and formative years for them is so different. It reminds me of how different can one's reality be, and the cards we are dealt with in life. But I realised over the days, weeks, and months I became less and less impacted by the same surrounding, while I am still empathetic and sympathetic, I am able to stay in my own lane and carry on. I've been adjusted to it, I've become desensitised.
The illegal occupation of Palestine by the apartheid state Zionist-Israel and the ongoing Genocide committed the apartheid state Zionist-Israel and its complicit allies have been going on since 1967. Jews and Israel are not the problem, the ethnocentric Zionist agenda and its Hasbara propaganda are. I still remember many years ago when I first learned about this from the news, I felt so conflicted and overwhelmed due to the fact that in the global scheme of things true justice for Palestine seems unattainable. There was a point where I am constantly bothered by this and feeling the anguish from the atrocities. Fast forward to now with all the things going on with my personal life, all the casualty updates and news from Gaza seems to be drowned in the many things that are competing for my attention. I am now used to seeing the reports from Gaza in my feed. I've been adjusted to it. I've become desensitised.
to me having sensitivity towards an interest/cause/something , is certainly good because that shows it is meaningful enough for us to feel strongly about, to champion and to be protective about.
I don't want to be desensitised because I believe it's losing one part that makes us human.
Fortunately we can work to sensitise things back up.
