I’m not angry this time.
If anything I’m just exhausted.
That kind of tired that you feel after you've had an argument with a
loved one and all the vitriol has just been wrung out of you and all you really
want is for all of the bad feelings to go away and for everything to be at peace again. It’s an empty dullness
that makes you just want to lie down on the couch in the quiet house, exhale
and look up at the ceiling. Maybe I’m
just getting numb to it all.
This time it’s a bombing at the Boston Marathon. At this writing three people are dead, one an
8 year old boy, 140 or more injured and who knows what the motive was. And at this writing, I honestly have to say I
don’t care what the motive was. Religious
zealotry? A political axe to
A co-worker knocked on my office door and told me about
the first reports. And like all the
times before, Newtown and Aurora, Oklahoma City and World Trade Center, I did
what it seems that I’ve been programmed to do and I turned on the news and
scanned the internet. And every time
that I repeat this now robotic process it seems that I feel more helpless and
in some way a little less human. Less so
because with each incident I feel less saddened and a little more resigned and
impassive. Isn’t that what happens to
soldiers in the field only on a greater, more personal and more horrific
scale? Are we on some relentless path to a pandemic of self induced PTSD?
No, I don’t have any rage this time? What good does it do? I remember 9/11 when I got home from work drained
from a day of getting snippets of news and then parking myself in front of the
television, eyes glued to the horror and feeling a malevolence churn from my
gut until it roared to anyone in the room who would listen that I wanted to see
the whole Middle East bombed until all the sands had become sheets of
glass. I remember my father telling me
about that December day in 1941 when his dad wanted to go out and “beat up a
jap.” Luckily I wasn’t in possession of
the launch codes and luckily there were few Japanese in Salt Lake City in
1941.
Oh but there’s rage and you don’t have to look far to
find it. With a mouse click I can find enough
white hot energy to light Chicago. One
of the first posts I found on Facebook was the opinion that this had Al Queda
written all over it and we should just go level the Middle East and on the way
back do the same to North Korea for good measure. And while I feel sorrow for the victims and
their families I also have to think about a couple of Muslim friends I have who
probably are feeling compelled to keep low tonight. And for what? Because people who've forged a career out of hatred say that Muslims are the obvious perps? I’m as saddened by the rage as I am by the
tragedy itself. Because in the end it’s
the rage that acts like a firestorm feeding itself and continuing the whole cycle
with each person, each faction, each ideology believing that it’s rage is the
righteous one.
Oh I sincerely wish that the tears would come but sadly I’m
only feeling a cold, empty feeling of resignation that this is what it’s all
come to and there really is nothing that’s going to stop it. This afternoon as I listened to the news the
strongest emotion that I felt was a resentment towards my employer for not just
shutting the place down for the day and sending everyone home to go to church,
the local tavern or to be with family; anyplace that would help refill our
personal cup of solace. But there were
still orders to be filled and dollars to be made and if we didn't do it our
competitor would. It’s the same
resentment that I felt on 9/11 when en masse we should have just gotten up from
our desks and gone home.
My heart goes out to those who perished and their
families. It goes out to those who were
injured and will eventually heal physically some fully and some tragically not,
but who will always carry the mental and emotional weight of this day.
I hope and pray that somehow, some way, some day, we, as
an entire human race, unbounded by borders and regardless of color, race or creed will
figure out how to stop all of this. I
don’t know, maybe the answer is in the way I feel right now. Maybe everyone just needs to get plain dog
tired.
Dog tired is a good way to put it. Maybe you saw the photo of the boy who was killed just after he had hugged his dad who crossed the finish line. The photo showed him some time back holding a sign he made which read "Stop hurting people" and "Peace". Now he is one of the latest victims, along with his mom and sister who were critically injured by the same bomb blast.
ReplyDeleteJust as with the acts of gun violence, this just keeps happening and will continue to do so. One thing that the media hasn't said much about is that, unlike Oklahoma City and 9/11, this is more in line with the terrorist acts in the Middle East. How many times have we heard about suicide bombers blowing up a bus, a cafe, a marketplace, in Israel or elsewhere?
I've often thought since 9/11 that someday the terrorists will figure out that the best way to truly terrorize Americans is to do what they do in the Middle East. Blow up a Muni bus, a BART train, a crowd waiting to get into a Giants game, a crowded mall during Christmas shopping. When (not if) such horrible actions start and become common, every person in America will feel as those in the Middle East do and wonder each morning if they will live to see another morning.
Until that happens, we will continue to read and hear the self-absorbed bullshit that clogs Facebook, Twitter, and the like. The crap about what someone ate for lunch, the crap about someone buying a new dress, the crap about someone getting a ticket to a concert or ballgame, the crap about American Idol, the crap about someone's kid doing something perceived to be incredibly cute.
The tendency to be self-absorbed, I think, comes in large part from the fact that we don't live as folks do in the Middle East, as they often did in Northern Ireland. We don't feel our mortality as strongly as people do in those other areas of the world because we're not faced with the likelihood of crazed fanatics blowing us up as we wait in line in a supermarket, a fast food place, a bus stop. Maybe we are faced with that now.
It looks as though such scenarios may be closer to everyday reality than we realized. Yesterday it was Boston, tomorrow it may be another American city.
I agree with your comment that we don't live as people do in regions of the world that experience terrorism on, how do I put it delicately, a regular basis. Our geographic isolation is disappearing if it hasn't already. And so we're reaching the time of decision when we have to choose between the liberties we've become accustomed to and the security measures necessary to protect us.
DeleteYou make mention of the Middle East repeatedly. Of course we don't know that this is an act imported from the Middle East (read; Muslim). In 2011 a similar type bomb, made to inflict casualties and not take down buildings was planted by a white supremacist on Martin Luther King Day. The bomb was found before it could be set off. Terrorists come in all manner of different ideologies. One Facebook poster theorized a religious fanatic. Do we take that to mean Muslim? We've had right wing Christians terrorize abortion clinics. Yesterday was tax day. Was it a sick statement by someone with an ax to grind against taxation? There are plenty of those around. We won't know until someone takes credit or gets caught. And this is part of my reason for saying that it really doesn't matter who did it. Because one day it might be a white supremacist, another day it might be a religious extremist and yet another it will be someone with a gripe against some government agency. It just keeps happening and I don't see an end to it until that miraculous day when everyone, literally everyone, is tired of it all. I'm not holding my breath.
Finally, I plead guilty to being a self-absorbed bullshitter. I post crap about what I had for lunch, or getting Giant's tickets and I post about my cute grandkids and dog. I haven't posted about getting a new dress yet but stay tuned - anything is possible. Lighten up.