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I was at work this Friday, when a coworker came into the kitchen, and very stoically informed me that there was an active shooter on Centennial. “Oh.”, I said. It wasn't so much that I was uninterested or unfeeling towards the situation. Our demeanors were similar, rather, in that the two of us simply felt weary, numb even, of reacting to tragedy. Both of us cared. Both of us were worried. Neither of us were surprised.
This shooting is the second in less than a month in our city alone. Yet it is a drop in the bucket in terms of the recurring tragedies and injustices throughout the world. Two thirds of my facebook turned blue, white and red in response to a massive terrorist attack in Paris, this attack coming on the same day as another in Lebanon. Shortly afterwards was an attack on a hotel in Bamako, the capital of Mali. All of this goes to show the well documented fact that people can be awful to each other. Many complained that Facebook only offered a French flag filter after the attack, but to truly express solidarity for every single tragedy around the world would leave us changing our profile pictures almost daily, perhaps every hour on some days.
These things are what make the news. But these isolated acts of violence are but eddies in a river, the manifestations of a system that will eventually progress to its own annihilation. I do not mean to sound dark, or—rather, I do mean to sound dark, but I do not mean to sound hopeless. I'll get to the hope in a minute, I swear. But while we can observe outbursts of violence all around the globe, the fact remains that many tragedies are simply too drawn out and constant to make the news. The cell phone that I rely on to produce my music and my radio drama was built in a sweatshop where they need suicide nets to keep the workers from jumping to their deaths. The minerals for this phone, at least some of them, may have been extracted at the barrel of a gun, mined in heat and humidity most Americans will never experience, by someone unlucky enough to have been born somewhere 'unimportant'. There are known perpetrators of genocide still walking free in Central America, people who could be identified, apprehended, and charged, and yet the system has been built so that they are seemingly immune to punishment. To list every instance of injustice and suffering in the world today would be a terribly exhausting and exhaustingly terrible endeavor. I am not going to do that.
When I tell myself, “what can I do?”, the question that I must answer first is, “what do I have?”. I am a poor-by-American-Standards college student, preparing to spend all the money I have in savings on a research trip to Brazil. I have the ability, however, to write. I have the ability to broadcast anything I write for about two or three listeners every week. I have the ability to show other people love, and kindness. And, take these as strengths or weaknesses, have a minimal amount of impulse control, a mild case of anxiety that manifests itself as persistent yet affable paranoia, and a severe case of depression that has led to so far one, just one, trip to the hospital. But those last few things are beside the point. What I want to do at the moment is to use this radio program, which, as I've said, probably two or three people listen to, in order to do something.
The design of the Enemy is to make all things seem so horrible that they cannot be reckoned with or overcome. The design of the Enemy is to destroy our faith in peace, to destroy our capacity for hope, and to drain us of our will to love. The Enemy, which we will not call terrorism, nor Isis, nor crazy white people, nor violence, nor oppression—not even Satan, although that did seem to be where I was leading with this—is manifest in all of these forms. Evil wins when we run. Love wins when we press forward. As trite as it sounds, apathy is the opposite of love, and we cannot let it win. Although the problems with the world, and the realities we face are immense, we cannot retreat. We cannot withdraw. We will press forward and continue to love, and to care, and to hope. Things may not seem to get better, but with enough time, they will.
On a more personal note, and please mind the following does come with an additional trigger warning, I and many people that I know have been suicidal. In fact, I realized recently that I know fewer people who have not been suicidal than otherwise. Fortuanately, I have never known anyone who has committed suicide, but I have been terrified all my life that someone, someday, will. It is because of this, and the recent tragedy in our city, that I wanted to do something specifically to give people hope. I wanted to collect stories of thankfulness and of reasons for hope, and although as I write this fairly pompous essay I only have three or four, I hope that by Monday when I read this, I will have accomplished that goal.
Something that someone said gives them hope while I was at the Black Sheep seemed especially profound to me. You will hear it in a moment but I wanted to touch on it, just in case the background noise detracts too much from what they said. What they said is that, and I will have to paraphrase, because the interview is on my phone, that when tragedies like this happen, the way that people always manage to rally against the violence, against the hatred—the way that people show love to one another in these situations, the way that a community can be led to pour out its heart for those in trouble or in need in a crisis—shows that there really are more good people than bad. I'm sorry, that's what happens when I paraphrase, I actually just make whatever the person said longer and more dramatic.
But I believe that this is true. I believe that within many or both of our listeners there is the potential, the seed, to make a difference. This difference is small but it is cumulative. But what I think will lead to the most change is if the benevolence and concern that we show is expressed in a context outside of strict tragedy. Someone once said that regret is stronger than gratitude. Regret is stronger than gratitude, even when one or the other is felt in equal amount. But love must be stronger than fear. Let's care for each other. Let's abandon all fear of being annoying, patronizing, or vulnerable and let's compliment each other when we feel like it, check in on each other, and tell each other that we care about them. Let's challenge ourselves to talk to strangers, to give without questioning, and to forgive without demanding compensation. Let's disagree with people and not decide to shoot them. Let's rally against violence and hatred before violence and hatred occur.
These things happen all too often. The reactions, the media back and forth, the aftermath—all of it is too routine. I say “Oh”, and that word sits alone where once it really ought to have been followed by, “My god!”, and where shortly before that I might have added, “I can't believe it!”. All I said was, “Oh.” I wanted to feel more. I remembered feeling more. But I didn't have any more. All that I had was, “Oh.” Many people listening to this may feel the same way—disconnected. There is no need to burst into tears at every tragedy, much less a need to force yourself to do so. But through every act of hate, if we can continue to act with love, then we win. It is our actions that form the atoms of a rebellion, each one unaware of its own significance, yet composing something that, as a sum of all of its parts, has the potential to move mountains. It is faith, it is hope, in whatever capacity, in whatever constitution, that will overcome in the end.
Thanks for tuning in.
Please enjoy the special, and some music.
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