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I have a really hard time dealing with the realities of what is going on out there in the world. I purposely don't watch the news and try to avoid reading too much online because I just have no buffer to filter out all the tragedy that occurs on a regular basis. It's just too overwhelming. I personally lost my only sibling nearly 15 years ago so I can relate to the profound sense of loss when I see these people killing those people or airplanes being shot down.

Just tonight I accidentally saw a video on facebook of middle eastern children being systematically executed. It came across my feed and I can't read arabic so I didn't know what was about to occur. I put my hands over the screen because I couldn't stop the video fast enough. The reality is stuff like this is happening all the time. From what I've read NTs have ways to distance themselves from terrible happenings. Not that I want to become aloof and uncaring but I can't carry the weight of the world on my shoulders either.

Does anybody else just feel overwhelmed by it all? Do you have coping strategies?

Seeing children being executed in the middle east is not uncommon. In fact, most of the hard core kiddy porn come from there. Sick stuff and all done in the name of religion.

My coping strategy is to feel depressed and anxious.

I cannot look away from or filter reality. I gave up trying.
I think reality is such that it deserves to be witnessed out of respect.
I think it is morally wrong to look away from what is real and pretend that it's something else.

I think it's the willingness of people to look away that got society to the point it is today, and it's getting progressively worse.

I have to say another coping mechanism is to escape reality for periods of time, - like many people play games or watch movies. I just don't ignore or filter reality though.

I think a great example of this is the fact that there are 9 stray cats on my small street now, due mostly to people moving away and abandoning what was once their pet. It's their ability to ignore and filter reality that allowed them to do this.
I cannot ignore them and I'm doing my best to care for them and eventually get them all re-homed.

oh, by the way I stopped watching TV several years ago. Too much of the programming is intentionally designed to agitate, and I don't need more of that.

My copy mechanism is realization they are just dots in a statistic.
There is 7 billion people on the world and about 150'000 of them dies everyday. There is no point in mourning about 1, 2 or even 300 of them because I should mourn about all 150'000 to be fair. One person death is no more important than any other person death and it is impossible to mourn after all of them because I would just end up constantly depressed, day by day. So I stick to mourning after people I know myself if they happen to die. "Other people are just statistic" - that's what I say to myself when I feel bad about the TV news. And it helps.

Kiriae - that is an extremely controversial point of view, and you are going to get lots of flak!

But I agree with you. Animal species come and go, and there is no justice for any individual. The human race will continue to beat itself up until the end of time. The empty posturing of (mostly) western politicians is no different from a peacock displaying his feathers.

You eventually become desensitized if you watch enough of it. It's a crazy world.

I'm started to avoid the news - it's just getting too depressing and far too graphic. They really don't need to show some of the things they show but I think for them it's a ratings game.

I'm no fun to talk to when it comes to news media horror stories. They tell me horrible thing X happened on some news network. I tell them it's a good day for network TV marketing. Tragedy draws eyeballs. Cut to commercial. Purchases happen. Business as usual. There's a saying when it comes to news media that "If it bleeds, it leads". There's a reason for that.

Once I started thinking of the coverage as just another business transaction, I stopped feeling inclined to pay attention. In my moral worldview, that's a good thing. Victims of tragedy generally want some privacy when they're grieving.

They ARE living beings, NOT statistics!

Statistics is a completely conceptual thing we have created as a mental tool.

The system is set up to condition us to live within a conceptual world and become psychopathic monsters.

Don't let it!

To deal with all of it, I simply stopped watching the news, and I started reading good books more.

It's amazing how quickly I lost the sense of "The sky is falling!! !" when I stopped partaking in 99% of all media.

The older I get, the more I realize modern society is really not good for your health.

LOL yep!

I think most of us have such a hard time dealing with reality because we do deal with it.
I think NTs are mostly disconnected from it.
Though to be fair I've had NTs tell me that I'm disconnected with reality.
Yes, from their perspective I am.
Even though it is difficult, I am thankful for that.

...two seriously conflicting views...

Should we go with the statistics, and become psychopathic monsters? Or should we bury our heads in 'good books'?

I can't be bothered with the news, or TV in general. I've not had my TV license I think for a few months now. I hate all this hatred they like to spread. People get really angry with it, and they get angry with ME if I don't want to argue about how immigrants are taking over the country and all the people on benefits are stealing money.

I just don't understand how they *can't* see the media is blatently setting people up against each other. Divide and conquer, and all that.

This was the beginning of my point.

The end of my point was that it's not primarily the "media" doing it. They do it because the viewers demand it. They do it because they also serve identity, hierarcy, and other concepts in the belief that they are real. What actually does it is something bigger and more powerful than any human. It's a system intelligence which is a collection of very highly evolved ideas based on aggression. None of us are in control of "it", and that is terrifying.

When it comes to people who are close to me I have no filter, but I do have a filter for the news. The emotional part of me doesn't see the news as real life even though I know it is. I rarely feel pain when I watch the news. I usually just get bored.

I didn't understand your post before, but I get it now. I'm tired ATM.

There's a select few who are in control of it though, or in control of our own minds anyway. Do you mean we can't control the system intelligence from affecting others?

I just find it interesting how humans in general lie to each other all the time, about everything, and they know this very well. And yet they still assume whatever they read/watch is telling the truth. Like anything that isn't human is somehow above them, that's above them in hierarchy, sort of as you said.

It's like whenever I say a fact, I *try* to say words like "apparently" before them, because I believe most questions have many answers to them, and there isn't necessarily one right answer. For example, it was a fact that the Earth used to be flat. We don't know we're being deluded by the media that it's actually round. Poor example, but one nonetheless. OK, another...I was corrected by an intellect that you don't use the word "unconcious" when describing the automatic part of the brain, but you use "subconcious". I was told by a Psychology student that actually, it *is* called the unconcious.

That, and it is so hard for one to question themselves. I'm always fighting my need to be right, but I know I slip every now and then. Most others on the other hand...

It's annoying to think that way though, because it appears to others that you're unsure of yourself. Which pisses me off, because in reality my mind is more open, which surely makes me a bit wiser. Just having the right tone of voice/writing and stating things as a fact, and people believe you. It's just so wrong, but I understand how it happens. I'm ranting now, probably.