REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

The other day in the Mediterranean off Greece, a fishing boat carrying some 700 migrants toward Europe from Africa and beyond capsized and sank. 78 died and 104 were saved, all men. No women and no children have been found so far, alive or dead. All women and children were tucked away down in the hold. All the men were up on deck. One can only imagine the terror of those below deck as they clung to each other, were flung en masse into a crushing heap, and cold water rushed in to suffocate their screams.

On that same day, Wednesday, GOP candidate Trump railed against the Justice Department that had indicted him for obstruction and the mishandling of sensitive government documents. Predictably, he raised as much as $7 million dollars in donations for his legal defense and campaign while most fellow Republicans demurred on the actual facts in the case.

Meanwhile, Putin’s military sent more missiles and drones raining down on Ukraine, destroying at least one residential apartment building killing 12, all while a cyclone bore down on the coast of India amidst a stifling heatwave and scores of forest fires raged across Canada. Further, at least two more mass shootings occurred in the US as thousands of dead fish washed ashore from the Gulf of Mexico and a 9-year-old girl competing in a shot put event was tormented by another competitor’s parent for looking more like a boy than a girl.

On a day to day basis, one can hardly keep track of all the disturbing events occurring across our planet. It is both overwhelming and oppressive, showing up in skyrocketing mental health problems, especially among the young, as reported this week by the CDC. What really can be done?

I am reminded of a so called “solution” that has been offered in at least one movie and on the streets of the Middle East during the Arab Spring several years ago. And that is to loudly and continuously bang a pot, voicing both protest and concern by contributing to the decidedly non-sensical chaos and tragedy one is witnessing all around. Definitely not an actual solution to anything, but an emotionally satisfying short-term response at the very least.

On a more practical scale, I’d humbly suggest each of us take one constructive thing at a time to completion, even if it’s a small thing. Good mental health demands we each cultivate and nourish our own constructive and effective individual agency. But not in a social vacuum. Whatever we choose to begin with, we’d be advised to make it to the benefit of someone close to us. With that accomplishment in hand, we can then branch out, benefitting both ourselves and others in an ever widening circle of concern. With each new accomplishment, I guarantee from personal experience, we will all feel less and less impotent, insignificant, and overwhelmed. Hope is definitely out there through exercising our own individual concern, creativity, effort, and accomplishment, even if done little by little, one thing at a time.

After a few hard days of engaging, earnest, and effective effort, a relaxing day at the beach to celebrate wouldn’t hurt either. Do cultivate and nourish your individual creative, concerned, and constructive agency.