The current Atlantic Monthly includes an article by Caitlan Flanagan on the hazing death of Tim Piazza last February, and I can’t read it. Flanagan is an author whose stories I usually enjoy, even though our political views differ. I inform myself about many painful subjects; just today I listened to shocking, horrifying details about the genocide of the Rohingya, something that is happening right now. But this one I couldn’t face. I made myself start it, but stopped reading after two paragraphs.

Maybe it’s because Tim was only a year younger than my younger son. Maybe it’s because his death was college-boy-excess related, and I know a lot of young men in or near that age group. Maybe it’s because fraternity hazing deaths of young men continue to happen with no justice and no changes, and this case is no exception; recently the judge dismissed most charges, including all the manslaughter ones. Possibly it’s because I just don’t want to think about what I imagine is the worst thing that can happen, losing a child.

It’s interesting how our psyches protect us, or most of us, from despair. We either find an optimistic angle, or we don’t face the situation at all. When my husband had a medical emergency that could have been fatal, I denied it for hours, not intentionally, but instinctively. Only later did the fear creep in, and by then I knew he would survive it, an optimistic result by definition. In the Piazza article, my mind seemed to decide for me that I should protect myself from it, and I couldn’t override that.

I’ve heard it said that humans cannot conceive infinity of either space or time–or, more accurately, of spacetime–and that if one of us did, she would just lie down and stop, overcome by her own insignificance. I can reason my way around that thought, and even find amusement in it. It’s true, though, that most of the time I set infinity aside. I would not enjoy being an astrophysicist, constantly confronting it.

Apparently there is no limit on how small things can be either; physical space is considered to be infinitely divisible. This sort of infinity comes up in math, too. One can keep counting infinitely, of course, but one can also fit an infinite number of numbers between any two numbers. Math actually defines a number of different infinities.

Notice how my thoughts have carried me far from my original aversion. It’s self-protective. Still somewhere far inside my mind, I know there is a nugget of sorrow, very deep sorrow, for Tim, for Tim’s parents, for the Rohingya, for all the victims of all the wars and genocides I have ever heard about. Most adult humans, I think, walk a narrow, psychic line between forgetting and being overwhelmed. It’s imperative not to do either.