I can easily get sucked into that hopeless feeling too. I almost feel obligated to know about these things in detail. I mean hell, people are actually living these atrocities, I can at least put up with the discomfort of reading about them. There is one specific image of a man in the Congo who was mutilated that is forever scorched into my memory. I eventually realized that all this was doing was making me more pessimistic and feeling more like what I do couldn't possibly matter. From what I now about the media and who controls it, I think that feeling is sort of what they are going for. They want you to feel overwhelmed and small because it makes you less likely to take action. It's important to realize that what is on the news is a mere fraction of what is actually happening and the violence is disproportionate to what is actually occuring. But these thing are occuring, so I still watch mainstream media. I also like to keep up with how people are being socially conditioned. I just supplement it with good news as well. I still see that man in my head sometimes, but now I try to use that image to make me feel thankful instead of feeling despair.
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