Complex Numbers

System Shock

Leave it to me to have a hangover at midnight. Nevertheless I will attempt "JAFBG"  [XGC]:

Tell us about something or someone that shocked you recently.

Well, um...

Hm.

Maybe this is too much for my hung over brain to handle.

When you're as jaded, cynical, and pessimistic as I am, what can possibly shock you?

Surprise? Sure, sometimes. But "shock" (when not taken literally) requires more than surprise. It implies a kind of initial disbelief, quickly followed by something like anger. Not the whole Five Stages of Grief, or maybe actually the whole five, but in very rapid succession.

A politician gets caught taking bribes and/or evading taxes? Expected.

A priest bones an underage boy? Yeah, it figures.

An actor turns out to be a sexual predator? Yawn.

A cop lies about that shooting? No surprise there.

I'm not saying that nothing could shock me. That would just be tempting fate. And shocked or not, there needs to be consequences for any of those things, however everyday, expected, and commonplace they have come to be.

Hell, even hitting a deer on the road the other day didn't shock me. Startled, surprised, inconvenienced, sure, but right after it happened I was like "Oh well, I knew this could happen."

Is that wrong? Is it bad to be so inured to bad shit happening that I can't even work up that sense of betrayal of everything that's right and good and pure that's called "shock?"

It's not that I don't experience emotions. Hell, I am often pleasantly surprised -- perhaps the opposite of shocked. Even sometimes delighted, moved, giddy.

Perhaps the most shocking thing of all is that I can still feel emotion.