Practical Advice in the Wake of Senseless Tragedy
What are we to do when it feels like the specter of untimely death is everywhere?
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Now on to the essay:
I don't know if you even want my takes right now. I know I don’t particularly wanna make any grand pronouncements yet either. We're at a terrible, perilous moment in American sociopolitical life. The back to back violent deaths of Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk, days apart and both slain by homicidal maniacs, are shocking in their brutality, senselessness, and the reactions they've engendered. What are we to do?
Yet I will repeat: now isn't really the time for arch political takes qua takes. Not from me anyway. I won't lecture you too hard about rhetoric, or recriminations, or the like. I will instead take this moment to offer some simple and real world advice to anyone who may find themselves adrift in this moment. It’s not much, but I daresay that as I steadily enter middle age, I have some hard-earned wisdom to impart.
And yes, I can understand how the deaths of two individuals, likely strangers to most/all of you, may not by themselves seem like anything akin to a national tragedy. But combined with a Colorado school shooting the same week, not to mention a church shooting only weeks ago, the whole situation does start to feel like something altogether worse than normal. So much suffering, so much loss. We need to think carefully about what's next.
What it all seems to show us, amongst many other things I'll try not to pontificate about too much just yet, is that anyone can have their life snuffed out in mere minutes. Rich or poor, famous or anonymous, young or old, devout believers or secular humanists. We are all vulnerable, we are all human, we are all in need of peace, love, and understanding. We shouldn’t forget it. (Speaking of not forgetting, check the publication date. The symbolism and conjunction is poignant, right?)
In that spirit, I want to make some basic suggestions for any and all of you right now, today, to act on. It's not much, but maybe it can help put out some more goodness out into a world which desperately needs it right now:
Call your friends, family, and other folks in your life. Let them hear your voice. Let yourself hear theirs. Schedule time for a face-to-face. Meet them, hug them. Say whatever you need to say, and listen to them in turn. Life moves fast and it’s easy to neglect things like this.
Whilst I’m probably not the best spokesman for a message of anti-polemicism or loving kindness, I’m gonna reiterate what my preamble touched on: we need more civility, humanity, and decency right now. I was grateful to see a sizeable outpouring of it already, but also depressed to see some come up short as well. We owe it to each other to do our best, especially at times like this.
Log off. Another bit of potentially hypocritical advice, but I’m giving it anyway. The majority aren’t doing this internet game for a job, so don’t treat it like one. Take a social media or blogosophere hiatus. Do #1, read a long book, start/accelerate an exercise routine. Something, anything, besides doomscrolling all day. It’ll be better for your mind and body.
Don't weaponize strangers' deaths to feed whatever pernicious political agenda pops into your head or is being fed to you by others. Be it attacks on minorities (ethnic groups, LGBT, etc); nonsense gun control (read: gun grabbing) fantasies; or whatever else. I think we'd all benefit from less of that in the wake of terrible tragedies. It's not helpful, it's not persuasive, and it mostly just divides us further.
Help people in your life, or in your immediate sphere of influence. Ties back to #1 and #3, with a more service-oriented vibe. Have you volunteered anywhere lately? Been to a youth group or faith-based communal aid/education program? Does a loved one need you to take a day and work with them on something? Do it. Any of it, maybe even all of it.
Give someone else a variation of the advice I’m giving you. Hopefully a little less saccharine and preachy, haha. But in all seriousness, I feel like a lot of us need to hear/read something like what I’m saying, but from someone they love and respect. I can’t be that to everyone (not even most tbh), so I’d hope some of you can spread the word. Big “come with me if you want to live (better)” energy, y’know?
I don’t have the solution to a culture of violence, political or otherwise. I do know it’s not endorsing such violence (duh), nor caustic/violent/intolerant rhetoric aimed at one's mere sociopolitical opponents. The gun laws, and gun culture, in this country are what they are. (I’ll be writing something about why gun control is a dead letter soon.) The mental health challenges we face are a lot less intractable, and being Less Online would definitely help combat them, I think. As would some love and happiness, to invoke the late Al Green.
Detective Somerset, played by Morgan Freeman, gives a quotation he ascribes to Hemingway in the film Seven, saying "the world is a fine place and worth fighting for". He adds that he "believes in the second part." I believe in both. But whether you’re more Somerset-pilled or more like moi, surely we can all agree that the second part calls us to do right by each other. I’ll end on a fuller version of the quotation, which is from Hemingway’s book For Whom the Bell Tolls:
"The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for, and I hate very much to leave it. ‘And you had a lot of luck,’ he told himself, ‘to have had such a good life.’ You've had just as good a life as grandfather's though not as long. … You do not want to complain when you have been so lucky. I wish there was some way to pass on what I've learned, though."