Living Today: From Outrage to Empathy in a World Drowning in Tragedy

Fridge Philosophy: We’ve traded real community for echo chambers that feed our anger. It’s time to acknowledge our shared pain, show grace, and rebuild connection—one compassionate act at a time.

I had another Fridge Philosophy queued up for today. It’s about living in today, and not being stuck in the past or in the clouds of tomorrow.

But when I was ready to push the “publish” button, I realized that if I were living in the present, I would seize this moment and share this quote with my readers. This may lose me subscribers. But what’s the point of having your own little Substack without expressing something in the moment?

Nobody deserves to be assassinated while talking on a college campus. Nobody deserves to witness an assassination unexpectedly. Nobody deserves to be killed in their school. Nobody deserves to be woken by a man impersonating an officer only to be killed. Nobody deserves to be attacked on a subway. Nobody deserves to lose their parent or spouse in an act of violence. Nobody deserved to be killed by hijacked planes twenty-four years ago.

Yet here we are.

And while in conversations I’ve had with colleagues over the past couple of days, we’ve nodded solemnly and expressed sorrow for the victim’s families, much of the anger, frustration, and outrage have been described and reacted to online.

Yes, that’s where we are, too.

And here’s the truth. We bathe in the blood of these tragedies. We didn’t get here because of the left and the right. We are here because we decided that an online community that monetizes our dopamine and cortisol is better than a community. We are here because we chose to create our bubbles of circular thought and pass around outrage like a bottle of ketchup.

And, we secretly like it. We like to focus our anger on a group. We like being able to identify what is causing our pain so we can direct our ire. It’s so much easier to assign a value to another based on who they voted for or how they react to tragedy online than it is to listen and understand the pain.

We can’t stand it when other people don’t feel or think the same way we do. But we never take the time to be curious and ask why. We only want to hear ourselves or those who share our perspective to win the argument. Because why would I care what a left-wing communist or a right-wing fascist thought?

Maybe they are struggling, and the breaks never seem to come.

Maybe they lack the energy or the support to move forward.

Maybe they want to believe in something, and this is all that they’ve got

Maybe they’ve battled cancer, and what got them through was their faith and their church family.

Maybe their lives have been touched by violence and are living with that trauma.

Maybe their hearts are broken by what they see in the world, and the only way forward for them is to either lash out in anger or let their sarcasm numb their souls.

Maybe they're just like us, but we never know because we never think to ask.

Maybe we’re feeling all of these things. Indeed, one thing everyone agrees on is that we are at a definitive inflection point in history, and we are not satisfied with how our society is meeting the moment. And we hate, because we can’t endure any more pain.

How do we move forward? We must acknowledge our pain, accept it, and recognize it in others. We have to show grace to ourselves and to others, even when they may not be in our same place. We must examine the environment we find ourselves in the moment with curiosity and look the person in front of us in the eye, showing compassion and love. How can we act for good today, and then do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and so on?

Yes, anger has its place, but for our own good, it can’t be permanent. At some point, we need compassion and forgiveness.

This is not easy. But something worthwhile never is.