Other than covid, obviously, one of the most major current events in the world today is the ongoing war in Ukraine. However, so many people who are in countries like the U.S. don’t have to deal with the war right on their front steps, and we have the privilege of distancing ourselves away from the suffering going on in other places. There’s been lots of chatter online, and some people have been joking about the war as a “coping mechanism” when they themselves don’t even live in the affected countries and thus have nothing to be coping about. As for myself, I feel as though the war is just another headline for me to read, and I have the freedom to move on and just focus on stupid internet memes while forgetting about the crises going on around the world, just because it doesn’t affect me. I feel guilty about it because I know that unless I experience what millions in Ukraine are facing right now, I’ll never know what that life will be like, and it’s precisely this kind of mindset that promotes nihilism and lack of care for other people’s suffering. At the same time, I still feel at a loss for what I as an individual can even begin to do to change anything, and though I know my way of thinking is melancholy and unhelpful it’s still truthful. So what more is there to do than just move on and laugh at jokes?