4 days left!

Make them count!

I've been dying to write something about what took place on Friday. I literally separated myself from the internet over the weekend to not allow myself to become mired in the opinion spouting taking place on social media, big media and, well, anywhere else you looked. I knew that if I allowed myself even a minute to start to take in what everyone was saying, I would feel the need to respond or speak up. I will not say anything, because I know I am already wrong before I say it. I understand that we all felt real pain. That we aren't always just voyeurs or news hawks. I watched people I love, people I respect have real palpable empathetic responses to that tragedy. I had the same reaction of sadness. The difference between me and, what I feel like is, the rest of the world is that I didn't try and fill the emptiness inside me with an explanation. Sometimes horrible things just happen. But we must accept the sadness for what it is. We need to be in the moment and realize why we feel so moved by the deaths of people we've never met. And since we don't know anything about them or about the person who committed such an unthinkable act, we try to "get involved" after the fact. This is why the news outlets are interviewing psychology "experts", or why the second amendment is being criticized, or there are pictures on Facebook of an Israeli grade school teacher carrying an M-15. I read a statement today that we are all culpable in the deaths of these children and school staff. But really, they were criticizing society. The laws didn't protect us. The education system failed us. The mental health system is broken. All the waxing philosophical in the world will not bring those persons back. It won't been comfort to the grieving families. It won't heal a torn community. If we were really all culpable, we'd have to hold ourselves personally responsible for the deaths of those children. We have also moved past calling a person or the act they performed evil. Until we either take personal responsibility for the condition our world is in, or throw away the sociological rule that the world makes people bad and individually not responsible, then our punishment will always be feeling an emptiness and pain that is irreconcilable.



That wasn't the sign of the day. I didn't want to make light of that tragedy. Today's sign of the apocalypse is somewhat related though. Day #27 of The Countdown to the Apocalypse's sign:

Banning Things!

It's never worked. It never will work. It may discourage some of the more law-abiding or repercussion-fearing people from doing it, but it will not eliminate it. These are mechanisms of control, not public good. Here are my examples so far throughout history in different places: free speech, religion, guns, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, nuclear weapons, hunting/poaching, soda, tanning, "raw" milk, gay marriage, Gaelic, owning land, gold, Jews, Catholics, Blacks, Protestants, women, illegal aliens, any immigration, I'm sure you can add your own. Needless to say, there is something on this list that you like or like to do. Stop trying to support one person's guaranteed rights while advocating the taking away of someone else's! The day we ban everything in order to protect ourselves from it, is the day we finally write the last chapter in the Book of Revelation. We have become non-persons then, accepting no consequences for our actions and no responsibility for our own condition.