feeling something/nothing

I was reading a book my boy gave me the other day. It's actually a compilation of women's testimonials about their experiences after/during wartime. While I was reading these women's stories, I felt sad because I know that I should've been feeling something -- anger, overwhelming emotions, a sense of urgency -- but I wasn't.

One of the women told a story about the time when the women in their village were put to work and they had to work because if they were seen just standing around doing nothing, they'd be raped. I felt a frown coming on, but I knew I wasn't feeling what I was supposed to.

It's strange, how removed one can be from the atrocities that are happening in the world. It's a self-centeredness that I know is wrong. What if it was my family, our country's women? But I find myself answering that it isn't. Here, nothing like that is happening. Here, it's just corruption and daily traffic, prostitution of different levels, differing types of hunger -- all of which are terrible, yes, but there's nothing here that's as horrible as what's happening to other places.

Is it really such a sin, to feel nothing about other people's lives?

Last night, I told him about this. I told him while we were lying down on our mattress, my head resting on the crook of his shoulder. I was ashamed to tell him about these things because he is so unlike me. I know that he bought me the book not only for me to be able to look at the pictures but to let me know other things about the world. The book says that outside, it is not so safe -- that lying on the crook of someone else's shoulder on a humid night is a luxury that some people don't have. And I almost cried because of my shame and wiped the tears with my hand. He says that these things take time, that I should not be too hard on myself. And then we kissed and cooed like the proper lovebirds that we are and it no longer stood between us.