Desensitized ?

Desensitize :
a)To render insensitive or less sensitive.
b)To make emotionally insensitive or unresponsive, as by long exposure or repeated shocks.
Word meaning from thefreedictionary.com

Has life desensitized me? Am I no longer affected by death? The first image that I saw in today’s paper was a public execution in Iran. The picture jumped out at me in a vain attempt to invoke a reaction. (my mind’s blank) I stared at it for god knows how long and still nothing.

I was staring at a young man hanging by the neck, his lifeless body swinging like a rag doll. We encounter images of death on a daily basis now, most of them casualties of war. I’ve seen blood, I’ve seen my share of corpses. I remember standing by an accident victim in the mortuary once and experiencing a chill that ran thru my whole body. I no longer feel that.Have I lost some part of me that makes me human? Am I no longer afraid of death or my own mortality? Have I lost respect for the dead?

I’m reminded of the movie; A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick, where the protagonist Alex is subjected to the Ludovico technique. In my case its just the opposite. I’ve become comfortably numb.

This is just fucked up…