Is it normal to have no emotion towards death?

Some of us have a better understanding of reality. People die, sometimes in seriously fucked up ways. That's life (or... it was). The fact is, crying or feeling sick about someone you never knew nor made contact with, that is abnormal. Our society acts too heavily on emotion. Just realise your more level headed than most. It's not normal... but it should be.

It's not normal that your father showed you gory pictures and videos!

Last comment. As you get older, you learn to appreciate how long some people are able to live. You go to a funeral, even for a very close loved one who lives to be 70, 80, 90, granted, you might be sad they are gone, probably more so a selfish emotion that you won't get to see them in this life again, or say something you wanted to say. However, the strongest emotion you are faced with, is, the celebration of life! Not everyone gets to see that many years. Some people die for strange reason, for no reason, illness, bad timing, poor decisions, or, bad luck. When you see someone who only just get started in life, or really, hasn't even gotten out of school die, well, that might strike more of a chord with you, might even cause you to sniffle, even if you didn't know them. Also, the older we get, the harder sometimes it is to control our emotions. We have seen so much, done so much, sometimes, when you least expect it, you see something, hear something, watch something, and it triggers an emotion you never even knew you had. Or, you see someone close to you struggle to hold back an emotion, that might get you emotional!

But, if you are young, it isn't a cold heart, it is an inexperienced heart. The only cure for that is time and experience. Don't push it, be glad you are the way you are.

Good for you, you realize, nobody makes it out alive.

But, a lot of this depends on how old you are, what you watch on TV. For a lot of younger people, you have seen so much of it on TV, or the video games you play, it really doesn't phase you. My guess is, when you see it the first time for real, you smell what it smells like, you will at least barf.

But, what makes you think you should break down and cry because you see a photo of death? Was it someone you knew, cared about?

Death is a part of life. Again, depending on how old you are, maybe you were cut out to work crime scenes. Not a lot of people are, and, my guess is, you'll easily find a job doing something in that line, and, if you get a lot of education, training and experience in it, you will do financially very well!

Your brain is blocking out the reality of it, it may or may not come back to haunt you later in life. When I was about 3 months into my job with the US Air Force, I was watching two guys clearing a pilot in a fighter jet. I think it was an f-16, cant remember, anyway, one guy got lazy when he was checking the aircraft to make sure nothing was wrong with it, so he walked underneath it to get to the other side. Well... underneath is with the air intake is, his first step, he got dragged up so fast, I heard a quick scream and he was already being blwon out the afterburners. It was nasty but didn't phase me at all, me and a Msgt cleaned up the mess and the techs spent about 3 weaks cleaning out the air craft of pulverized body parts. Your mind blocks it out, to avoid going into shock, humans should be seeing other humans mangled up, its not normal for us, but in your case, you are Ok.

the thing about death is we all react differently to it.

Well even if its videos of people dying, you don't really know them so I wouldn't say that your heartless.You are just not particulary sensitive thats all. But, I believe it might hurt you more if you had some kind of emotional attachment or maybe if it was a live killing ( feeling powerless to do anything).

It doesn't really phase me either.

If you have no feelings towards the victims of the crimes, how about anger towards the perpetrators?