I can certainly empathise with the overwhelming feeling of too much, too much! if I've understood you rightly.

I have been chronically depressed for as long as I can remember and although I can't be sure of the cause, my instinct is that it is my awareness of the vast amount of ignorance, injustice, uncaring, hurt and atrocity that occurs across the World every day of my life.

As trite and cliche as it may sound, the reality is that, with rare exceptions, the rich continue to get richer and the poor continue to get poorer.

For as long as we've existed, as far as I understand it, human beings have been social animals, yet what constantly reverberates around my head is just how anti-social behaviour seems to dominate the headlines and even the innermost and back pages.

So, my sense is that you have made a wise decision, though, having the feelings and concerns that you do, you may find it hard to keep. My reasons for saying this are, of course, based in how the mass of issues affect me.

For me, although I bleed (sorry) for the hardship, distress & pain of those in the Majority World, my smallness in the scheme of things and the existential distance I have from the reality for those people actually gives me some immunity, if you will, from the pressure of my knowledge that I have a responsibility and obligation to do something about it. My tiny efforts of writing to governments, attempting to spread awareness via social media and writing here and there what I can in effort to change things, seems to be in perspective with my capacity compared to the size of the problem.

When I engage at a local level, I find it much more difficult to reconcile my efforts with the size of the problem. I feel constantly weak and foolish and replete with self doubt because when met directly, head on and face-to-face with ignorance, rudeness, greed, abuse, selfishness, arrogant readiness to judge others and what seems to be a ubiquitous mentality to blame the victim my efforts seem ridiculously ineffective.

At that local level, I also find the antagonism of responses to me so vehemently expressed and so loud, angry and so commonly the response that I have to question myself constantly and often wonder if I am not completely out of step such that I don't fit at all.

So, it's a conundrum for me. I often feel that I ought to have been born dumb, i.e. as in unable to speak, because I have no wish to upset anyone yet that seems to be what mostly happens. - Yet I don't stop, so 'go figure', as they say.

Whatever, please excuse my rave. I wish you an effective and satisfying foray into the local quagmire and feel sure that you will have more success in a week than I've had in years.