Q: How can one stay detached from such human catastrophes?
A: …Detachment from positionalities, and especially the positionalities occasioned by labeling, leads to serenity, freedom, and security. Greater serenity arises from relating to the context of life rather than to the content, which is primarily a game board of interacting egos. This broader style of relating to life leads to greater compassion and emancipation from being at the effect of the world.
It is well to keep in mind at all times that the ego/mind does not experience the world but only its own perceptions of it. The media exploit emotionality and sensationalism in images and languaging to elicit sentimentality, or outrage, or to satisfy prurient curiosity. When seen for what they are, these invitations to reactivity can be declined. All life ebbs and flows. Everyone is born, suffers afflictions, and dies. There are happiness and sadness, catastrophe and success, increase and decrease. The stock market rises and falls. Diseases and accidents come and go. The karmic dance of life unfolds in the karmic theater of the universe.