It seems to be so much of human nature to try and figure out where it all went sideways.
When relationships fail.
When people are mean.
When someone shoots up a crowd.
We want to know 'why?' What could we have spotted along the way that would have allowed us to prevent it. What clue did we overlook? Where did it all go wrong?
I saw on the news that they will be performing an analysis on the brain of the killer.
Is evil visible under a microscope?
Perhaps they will find there was some brain damage. Some sign of dementia. Who knows. But most probably they won't find a solitary thing. No reason. No answer. Just endless questions and broken hearts.
We live in a culture where answers are at our fingertips 24/7. There are no more unanswered arguments. I can't disagree with my husband on something without his iPhone flying out of his pocket to settle it once and for all.
I think that we have lost something through that.
We have lost the ability to live in the tension of not knowing.
Maybe I only speak for myself, but I don't think so.
I think that if we step back we can culturally identify, not just as those seeking answers when something awful happens, but also as those wreaking destruction and mayhem as well.
I see such nastiness everywhere. Meagan Kelly started a new morning show and had a rough few days getting started. Now, I don't follow news, or Meagan Kelly, or anyone else for that matter, but for awhile I couldn't open up a browser without seeing her name and headlines about how much people hated her, etc.
There are real people with real feelings and real families that are being attacked in vicious and cowardly ways.
Fingers point at the POTUS for eviscerating people via social media, but it is not a problem isolated to him or started by him. There is a cowardly spirit at work in the hearts of so many. A cowardly spirit that sits behind a keyboard and constructs witty slander in order to get what we want. To eliminate our perceived enemies.
It is ridiculous and bullying behavior.
I have been on the receiving end of some of that recently, and I can say that it isn't fun. I can say that it stirs up all sorts of feelings and frustration and retaliation.
But I can also stand and say that it ends with me.
Maybe if more people stood up and stopped with the anger and the quest for the 'why' when sucky stuff happens we would live the more beautiful way. In fact, forget 'maybe,' we WOULD live a more beautiful way.
