We could get our brains blown out via semi-automatic assault rifle while searching for frozen pizza at Wal-Mart. We could never come back from that showing of The Hobbit if the local homicidal psychopath happened to pick the same theater. Whenever some shitty lecture in class makes you put finger guns to your head, realize that someone may be lurking just beyond the door, all too eager to fulfill your wish.
It is a selfish line of thinking, to be sure, but that makes it no less true. And besides, it is the only way I can begin to fathom what happened in Newtown - to know that it could happen in Columbia or Champaign or Highland too.
I had the nightmare last night. My policeman neighbor headed into the slaughterhouse of kindergartners to remove the slain. My parents' friends physically buried those same children, though they would never bury the day in their minds. My brother and sister came home without tears or words - only blank faces and shattered spirits. They were the lucky ones.
Chances are that day will never come. (There is a good reason most dreams do not come true.) Despite all the violence we hear of - and it is too much - human beings are remarkably kind to their kin. The human spirit is still alive, and thank God, for it is all that prevents us from living our public lives with the sort of blatant paranoia displayed in the words above. Yes, there is plenty to be worried about - but nothing to be frightened of.
In the next few days the nation will get over the shock of Newtown (if only because the 24- hour MSNBCNN tragedy cycle has to find something else to fixate on). The faith in humanity that allows us to live in a free society will return and the paralyzing fear will disappear.
It is this fear we must not succumb to at any cost, for it keeps us from appreciating all we do have. We have a political system that, while completely fucked, still upholds our freedoms, facilitates peaceful changes of power and places great faith in its citizens. Step up and reaffirm that faith. We live in a nation where the individual can still improve his lot in life and make the change he wishes to see in the world. Go out and be that change. And we have mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters and aunts and uncles and old people and babies and BFFs and casual acquaintances, people that make life worth living. Hug the shit out of them while you can.
