sadydoyle:

The earthquake happened while I was in Boston. By the time I came home, it was already huge news. The only thing that seemed to matter, that seemed at all meaningful, was footage of the catastrophes. When I had a spare moment, I’d watch it. Sometimes just the same video, on a loop, over and over. And I’d wonder what I was going to say.

The earthquake, the tsunami, the volcano, the maybe-meltdown. So many people have lost their homes; so many people have died; the danger is so far from being over. And, thanks to 24-hour news and amateur YouTube videos, nearly all of these events have been captured on film. Thanks to the Internet, nearly everyone has blogged about them. There’s something uncomfortable about watching that footage. It draws you in; it refuses to let you stop watching. You click “replay” compulsively, hoping that the next time you see it, you’ll comprehend it all. The shaky camera, the kitchen drawers falling open, the cloud of ash, the supermarket aisle covered in shattered glass and spilled wine: It seems almost ordinary, especially if you watch it (as many people do) on tiny, low-resolution YouTube windows. But you know that something beyond your experience, something massive and with unimaginably awful consequences, just occurred. You saw it. But you didn’t see it. You didn’t understand.

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