For those of you who feel sad for strangers that you never knew existed until now, why not direct your feelings to something productive like looking through local obituaries and contacting their survivors to show some support and kindness? There are real human beings dying all around us but they don't have dramatic movie-style deaths so we don't care. Even better, don't wait till they're dead. Go and seek out old, sick, and lonely people and make them feel better.

I think news-cycle internet sadness drains our capacity to care about others while also doing nothing for those who died or who're genuinely sad about it. The sinking submarine is interesting, the people on it aren't.