What are we?

After a long week, I have arrived at a question. Questions are never our destinations, answers are, so perhaps this is the beginning of another journey towards eventual self-and outward-discovery, which seems a little burdensome at the time.
I keep asking myself the question, "What are you doing?"
I do not ask myself a question like this because I feel I am doing nothing or that I have no direction. I ask myself this question because I have come to equate living with doing.
How can I continue to do what I do-menial tasks and involvements-while there are things, so many things, going on around me?
These "things" are not a general summary of world events. They are not a reflection of history or of past events. They are the present reality. When I say "things," I mean specific, real, true, and heartbreaking news I have received this week. And the most horrible thing about news is that is has implications for someone. It affects someone. More than someone. It affects you and me. Everyone in some way.
I found out tonight that there is a student at a neighboring high school who is in a situation no young person should be in. There are no easy solutions. There is no possible way that a heart will not be broken, that someone will be able to avoid suffering the consequences of a rash decision. It is simple and yet it is the hardest thing they will have have to overcome in their life. As I was thinking about this student, a person I have never met before, my heart hurt. My heart hurts when I hold my breath. I told myself that they are nothing to me, I don't know this person, I have never laid eyes on them, I will not be affected by their choice. I told myself that I don't have to feel sadness or feel empathy or feel on the verge of tears. I don't have to feel.
But I do.
What am I doing when there is news of death close to home?
When this end of life means the end of something else to someone else, what am I doing?
I am a being.
I need to be.