First Things First
I first want to extend my thoughts and prayers to everyone involved in yesterday's deadly bombings in Boston, MA. Especially to those injured and to those who lost family members in this tragedy. First and foremost, our wishes for physical and emotional recovery are with each of you. Our thoughts are also with the First Responders who risked their own safety to get the injured to medical treatment and secure the safety of everyone in the vicinity of the explosions.
The World We Live In
It saddens me deeply that we live in a world where we have slipped from only hearing about these tragic events happening here in our homeland from time to time, to hearing about them nearly every week, month, etc...nearly anytime we turn on the news. In less than the past year, we have had the Aurora, CO movie theater shootings, the Sandy Hook school shooting, and now the bombs at the Boston Marathon. As a society, how should we respond? How should we react? I fear that because these things are occurring so much more frequently that we may build up some sort of complacency toward hearing of these terrible things. As a kid, I only remember these large-scale tragedies happening infrequently in the United States; and they only happened frequently in far-off lands of war torn and third-world countries. Places so far away, that my mind as a suburban American child didn't truly really register the full breadth of what had happened - I now realize that mindset was a luxury - it didn't fully resonate with me, because it didn't need to. Those horrible things weren't happening anywhere near me, as a child, I did not have to fear for my safety in school, or in any other public places. So, I was afforded the luxury of having a sort of detached empathy for the victims. However, as we all know, this has changed dramatically in recent years and we, as Americans, are no longer afforded the luxury of far-removed sympathy for victims half a world away that we will never meet and will likely never hear of again. From Columbine to Sandy Hook,and many, many other school shootings in between to September 11 and yesterday's bombings at the Boston Marathon are just a very short listing of the tragedies that we have endured as a nation in recent years. If we do build up some sort of emotional tolerance to these events, then will people stop looking and fighting for the answers of how to make this stop? I hope and pray that does not become the case. It is NOT okay for an eight year-old boy waiting in excitement to see his father cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon to die for doing that. It is not okay, and it will never be okay for that tragedy to have happened. There are now too many voids in the world left by the legacy of each person who has been lost to these senseless acts of violence. This is not okay. It is not okay to have many, many holes in the world where a great person once existed and now does not because of these events.
Why?
I really wish I knew the answer to this, so that I could go and fix it and these things would stop happening. I know that in the wake of these tragedies there are always multiple political platforms of blame and finger wagging at some one or two hot topic issues 'du jour'. However, in my gut, I feel that there is NO single answer to stop this. I think that there are multiple different aspects that have given rise to this sort of large-scale violence. It isn't because one person was able to buy gun(s), it isn't because of one specific type of mental illness, it isn't just because of how one person felt that society was outcasting them as an individual, it isn't just because a movie and/or video game had a particular level of violence. In the conversations and debates that follow these tragic events, people want to try and finger point to one specific catalyst that set off or aided the people who carry out these violent acts. Rather, I believe, it is a multitude of these negative forces all working in tandem that is giving rise to these acts of senseless violence. Sadly, there is no one-deal-fixed band-aid solution for this problem. There just isn't. Until we stop fighting, arguing, and debating and admit that we have a much more complex issue than just one political hot-button topic, we are never going to find a preventative solution. We have to set aside what political party we are registered with, our religious differences, and our staunch opinions of who we want to be elected. We have to set aside our personal agendas and our ulterior motives. We have to work together. We have to talk. More importantly, we have to listen and be willing to listen to people who are from different walks of life than we are from. No one person, and no one magical piece of legislation will stop any of this. Until we kick down the barriers we've built to wall ourselves off from one another and start showing kindness to one another, this will keep happening. We must start being kinder to one another. Clearly this "me, me, me....now, now, now" society we have created is not working. Lest we forget that our country is called the UNITED States for a reason? We need to reinvigorate our ability to unite as a country and take a stand against this violence. The answer starts with simple kindness. If every single person would be kinder just one time each day, imagin what a better place this world would be.
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
~Plato*
*There are a number of resources that debate the origination of this quote; however, a number of academic resources credit the quotation to Plato. This exact version of this quote is most commonly attributed to Plato. There are also a number of variations of this quote that are attributed to others, or to unknown speakers.
