I hear a lot of debate surrounding the effects of exposure to violence. And while I don’t believe that violence in media leads to more violence, it certainly leads to desensitization towards violence. A total of 46 suicide attacks took place in Pakistan in 2013, which are included in the 1,717 terrorist incidents throughout the year. As the media keeps reporting these incidents on the scale at which it does, terrorist attacks become nothing more than a 10-minute bulletin during the daily headlines. It becomes so much easier to flip the channel and forget the pain and suffering of the victims whose families have to confront the reality that there is very little they can do to help the situation.

It seems that people care much less about human lives than they do about ideology. Even when people are protesting drone strikes in Peshawar, it is as much about the enmity they feel towards the United States as it is about the lives of the women and children lost in the strikes. If those people cared about human life, then we would see protests against the government for failing to protect those women and children.

When a trainee nurse is raped and then burnt to death on the streets of Karachi, there are few who seem to care. There were no protests against this injustice, or no notable ones at least. Compare this to the violent protests in Pakistan after the 2012 release of “Innocence of Muslims,” a film considered to be blasphemous by many Muslims, and you will see why human life is dirt cheap in a society that is indifferent to suffering.

It is understandable and unfortunate. There is only so much anger you can show, and hence you must prioritize. The violent and loud factions in Pakistan have chosen to prioritize their image in the world over the lives of the people that live in Pakistan. While rape and targeted killings might seem awful to your run-of-the-mill conservative, right-wing party in Pakistan, there is nothing that brings out their anger like when the U.S. military bombs areas in Pakistan. Both lead to pain and suffering, one just stings a little more, it seems.

It takes years to correct this situation, and it is hard to be patient when everything seems to go wrong. Those who might be able to solve the crisis leave disillusioned. I don’t blame them. But perhaps like many great leaders who became disillusioned, like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Ahmad Shah Massoud or the Prophet Muhammad, there will be a brave soul who will put Pakistan back into shape.

At the end of the day, finding a resolution is hard. For a people so thoroughly disillusioned and indifferent, the only thing that resonates is hope. But it’s hard to be hopeful when everything seems to be crumbling. So the choice is this: Either you lie to people and say that everything is fine and lead them on, or you acknowledge that things are beyond control and move from there. The cynic in me chose the latter.