i have an overactive imagination.
so when i see a washington state ferry wrecked and burning in elliott bay, it's a small leap for me to picture myself and my family in the scene.
understand, this ferry was a computer-generated image on a tv screen. it was a scene out of someone else's imagination in a show called 'grey's anatomy.' and as conscious as i am of manipulative plotlines and dialogue, i still got swept up in this one.
the faux ferry had collided with a container ship, and carnage was everywhere at our familiar ferry terminal. people were bleeding, dying, covered with tarps. a badly injured woman called for her young son. a little girl wandered amidst the chaos, speechless, looking for someone to help her. that was the part that about pushed me over. too close to home.
it could've been anywhere, i suppose. images of crying, injured children elicit a visceral response, whether they're in baghdad, new orleans or on a soundstage in seattle. i imagine most people silently transport themselves into such situations, and feel the pain of the moment.
this is true, isn't it? don't most people identify with and personlize the dramatic and the traumatic?
or are we all just abstractions? are people in iraq just radical islamists, folks on the gulf coast just poverty-stricken negroes, people in san francisco just liberal queers?
the answers to these questions are fairly important. if a person is nothing more than a caricature, they're much easier to ignore. or to kill.
or so i would imagine.
