Sitting in the barbershop, there was a woman on the television of unknown qualification during one of those daytime panel shows of women of little qualification giving advice to parents about how to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine with their children. The woman giving advice looked barely old enough to have children herself, but presumably had a degree or wrote a book, so was “expert” enough to fill the air time between commercials.

Her advice was to be simple and supportive. Tell your children they are safe, so they shouldn’t be afraid. My barber, Carol, watched with me, and afterward said, “What the hell is wrong with her?” I demurred, mostly because Carol was holding scissors at my head.

There are many lessons that children can learn from war happening elsewhere. The lesson this woman of unknown qualifications conveyed was that while other people, other children, in a far off land might die, make their pain, their trauma, their death, all about you.

National Public Radio twitted about it as well.

🧵 Thread: Russia’s attack on Ukraine means there’s a stressful news cycle ahead of us. The reality of conflict is always a shock to the system.

Here are 5 ways to cope.https://t.co/L3NR6BONZt

— NPR (@NPR) February 25, 2022

This listicle came from NPR’s “Life Kit’s” producer, Andee Tagle.

Andee Tagle (she/her) is an associate producer and now-and-then host for NPR’s Life Kit podcast.

For Life Kit, she helps craft both audio and written stories on all things of-the-moment actionable journalism, and is often lucky enough to make podcasts inspired by her own personal misadventures. She’s hosted episodes on grappling with likeability, relationship contracts and moving on a budget; and has produced episodes on everything from finding the right mentor to listening better to how to decide when to have a baby.

What qualifications does she have for telling people how to run their lives?

Tagle joined NPR as an intern for the Arts Desk in 2019, where she wrote reviews for movies and books, adapted interviews, and shamelessly watched hours upon hours of TV for “research.” Originally from Los Angeles, she holds a B.S. in Communications from UCLA, and an M.A. in Journalism with a concentration in Arts & Culture from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Impressive to go from intern to life guru in a matter of minutes. And so she used her platform to figure out a way to use the war in Ukraine to feed into the feelings of those neglected by not being unsafe. In this usage, “unsafe” isn’t used in the more modern fashion of having any feelings, real or imagined, of discomfort, but being bombed and shot at, except that the people feeling unsafe weren’t the same people as those being bombed and shot at.

What advice did NPR have to offer?

While we wait for more information, don’t forget to care for yourself in other ways:

Breathe. If you’re feeling your body contracting or overheating, step away from whatever you’re doing and take a deep breath.

Get moving. Do something that feels good for your body and helps you get out of your head.

Nourish yourself. The kitchen is a safe space for a lot of us.

Stay connected. When the news is scary, it’s easy to get lost in our own heads. Reach out to loved ones instead.

Or sign off. Remember that it’s OK not to be plugged into the news.

Deep thoughts, indeed. And some appreciated NPR’s focus on how other people’s trauma affects the deeply empathetic.

For the deeply empathetic person, being aware of the brutalities happening to fellow humans–even though on the other side of the world–can be stressful and traumatic. I have 6 parrots–if one of them is injured, the other 5 are deeply upset over it; it affects their health.

There were serious concerns about how other people’s trauma “retraumatizes” the traumatized as well. And then there were people who pointed out that what was happening in the Ukraine wasn’t all about them. Bonny Brooks offered a listicle of her own.

1. Realize it’s not happening to you
2. Remember it’s not happening to you
3. Recall that it’s not happening to you
4. Think that it’s not happening to you
5. Perceive that not everything is about you Hope this helps

Curiously, those who seek to make the war in Ukraine their pain and trauma want to tie it up in the bow of empathy. They just feel too much, too hard, and their feelings are real. The problem is that their feelings are all about them while the pain is someone else’s, a little detail that distinguishes their pseudo-psych rationalization from reality. Sure, war is scary and times are scary and everything is scary, or at least as scary as you want it to be. But the inability to separate your self-indulgent feelings from any remaining space for concern about others, the ones who are actually at risk, isn’t empathy. It’s narcissism.

A reply to Bonny Brooks characterized this as “the narcissism of appropriated pain,” which I am officially stealing. Most of what people try to call “empathy” has nothing to do with empathy, or sympathy as is more accurate but disfavored because, well, it just is. What this reflects is people’s desire, need if you will, to make themselves the center of all things, their issues the center of all issues, their claim of “pain” worthy of other people’s gushing “oohs” and “ahhs” so they can turn a world event that has nothing to do with them into something that’s all about them.

That the currently misappropriated pain is being suffered in the Ukraine merely makes the point easier to see, even for the unduly passionate if they’re inclined to give a damn about anyone other than themselves. But this isn’t possible for many, particularly those who have established a brand that isn’t getting sufficient airtime when the world’s focus isn’t on them, and so they contort themselves to find a way to make it all about them. On the one hand:

On the other hand.

For a brief and shining moment, realize that what is happening elsewhere isn’t about you,  your cause, your desperate need for attention. Then again, we have an epidemic happening here as well. It’s not war. It’s not COVID. It’s not racism. It’s narcissism. There will always be someone, somewhere, who is suffering pain and trauma. If it’s not you, then breathe, not because you need a listicle by an NPR intern to relieve your appropriated pain but because it may bring some oxygen to your brain and enable you to think about something other than yourself.