Why don’t I feel the same sorrow as everyone else?

As the Irish people collectively suffer and grieve through what has become this country’s ‘Lady Diana’ moment, I wonder – not for the first time – what’s the matter with me?

In fact I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with me at all, but I’ve noticed over the years that the way I react to accidental tragedy is not the same as the vast majority of others.

If you find yourself feeling different emotions to everyone else and give half a damn about being a reasonable human being, you have to ask: “What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I feel as upset and outraged as everyone else about the senseless death of the Irish students in California?”

Where I appear to be emotionally different, if not exactly deficient, is that I’ve never been able to feel more for one stranger’s loss than another.

Forgive me if I’m sounding disingenuous. It’s no mystery to me why you all feel the way you do.

I completely understand why the Irish feel this pain of loss of their own so deeply. It’s just that I don’t; not in the same way.

It would be easy to explain this national cauldron of boiling tears as the result of a small population feeling strong empathy and a sense of community, yet I recognise the phenomenon.

It’s exactly the same collective grief the English felt when the Princess of Wales died; a moment in time, a gash into the heart of the zeitgeist out of which the tears flowed.

England has a large population, but still they mourned as one, for a stranger. Thirty two million watched her funeral.

The usually stoic English cried in the streets for Diana because, estranged from the royal family, they saw her as a tragic victim of circumstance.

Ireland has recently lost many young people to emigration, and the deaths of these young people has reflected the fears and insecurities of all. Well, nearly all.

Of course I was shocked and sad, but no more than I was for the 53 who died that day in a bus crash in Peru or the 27 who were drowned in a tropical storm in Indonesia.

Did they? The fact that you don’t know illustrates why I feel the way I do.

Such tragic accidents happen all over the world every day, and my heart breaks for every parent who lost a child, every friend who lost a soul mate.

This disparity of feeling with the rest of the population does not apply to tragedies where injustice has been perpetrated.

It does not apply to crimes of hate, prejudice or war.

If anything, they make me feel more angry than most; even vengeful on occasion.

To those of you thinking that I’d feel different if I had my own children, take that ‘Baby On Board’ sticker off your car’s rear window and spend a moment or two contemplating the nature of compassion.

As a man of many faults, I can state with the utmost certainty that emotional constipation is not one of them.

For more from Charlie Adley see this week’s  Tribune, download the Digital Edition here or get the Connacht Tribune app from iTunes or Google Play