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No Sean, you’re not callous and no amount of BIID could make you so.
No one can be compassionate about everyone and everything all the time. No doubt if these unfortunate folk had been known to you then you would have reacted very differently. We haven’t the energy to show it to everyone who suffers all the time, however distant or unknown. It’s just not realistic.
You need to conserve your energies at the moment, that’s all.
Hugs to you…

The point of this post dear Sean is: YOU need to get hugged a big deal!! If there is one person uncaring, it is for sure NOT you!! Hey, in your recent posts I feel a lot of dispair and pressure you put on yourself..Try not to as much as you do right now, we all do appreciate so much what you do for the biid-community, but maybe it is YOUR turn now!? Be it dark ideas (like f.ex. finishing your suffering) or just relaxing a little bit more (f.ex. not expecting as much transabled-output as always from yourself?)..Sean, pls get a rest. try to be a lil’ egoistic – you deserve by far. A huge hug (pitty it has to be a virtual one ;-), empathic-kata

Sean, no one has enough jellybeans to go around. You expend so much on your own BIID, and more on us, that the onset of compassion should not surprise you. But, the unique gifts that make you so good for us, might keep you from seeing that. Thanks again for all you do for us, I’m not sure who else could.

Oops, I meant “the onset of compasson fatigue”

I am like this most part of the time. Last friday a boy was ran over by a car next to my school and I didn’t even remembered that after weekend. But if you start to care about every bad thing that happens, you just won’t live. Think about it.

Dear Sean, I want to second what Kata said.
You have every right to be “selfish”. You seem to need it.
I think that the “compassion” most people have when they hear something from far away is directly linked to their everyday lack of compassion to those who are near to them. Look how some people do their jobs, with how few compassion and ethics.
The Bible does not say “love the farthest”, but “love your neighbour as thyself”.
And Sean, I see you constantly observe (if not stalk) yourself and judge yourself (because I have this habit, too). You hurt yourself by it.
JUST BE, don’t judge, don’t criticise yourself.

Nobody is under any obligation to feel badly about the misfortunes of others. It does not make one a better or worse person, it does not make one more or less human. From what I have gleaned from Sean’s posts from way back is both of us were likely educated, er indocrtinized in the same education system in roughly the same era. We were encouraged to have emotional responses to events, especially in view of the circumstances of the victim. It took me many years to grow out of this mind set. A Pavlovian emotional response by onlookers does absolutely nothing to change the situation of the victim. Maybe some onlookers need to absolve themselves of any further action by simply feeling some sort of appropriate emotion.

Sean,

You’re a jerk. It may be the case that your BIID, doesn’t have any treatment and that you can’t choose to just “snap out of it”.

But let’s be honest. You aren’t the only person in the world to have problems. It’s not wrong to be upset about your own problems or depressed.

But it is vile to stop caring about other people. Sure, not everyone gets extremely upset about every misfortune around them. But if you don’t care about Iraq or other things?

That makes you a selfish pig.

@Olivia: You are wrong about Sean. He is someone that DOES care deeply about other people. He is also someone with humility. He is not boastful about the depth of his empathy and compassion, and all the things he quietly does for others. I’m afraid your comment reveals more about your own (lack of) compassion than it does about Sean’s.

Yeah, he cares about other people who have BIID and basically the same issue, as he does. But that’s about it.

(Mostly this is @Olivia)

It is completely unrealistic to expect anyone to care about every single bad thing that happens to anyone ever. That is just a recipe for making oneself crazy and depressed.

Because of my job I see/hear stories about people dying or losing their jobs or their home burning down or whatever other nasty thing happens every single day. I see/hear lots and lots of these things every day. Guess what? The vast majority of them make absolutely no difference to me. I care more about whether I have the script or the video to go along with that story, whether the graphics are spelled right and what I have to do for the next story about the next horrible thing.

This does not mean I am a jerk or callous or a horrible person. There is just no way any person can invest their emotions into every single bad (or good for that matter!) thing that happens.

If I started not caring about people I actually know (or friends/family of those people)… well that might be cause for some concern. But that isn’t the case. Which is clearly true for Sean as well! He said he “prefers to tend to his friends”. That is a completely normal and reasonable attitude!