Desperation

     It's been a powerful week, hasn't it, friends and neighbors? Between what happened in Connecticut, and what happened in central China, it's difficult to know where to go next, isn't it? It seems these events, and those like them, always leave people feeling scared, and more than a little lost. These things always come out of nowhere, because who could live a sane life always trying to be prepared for something like this? And even if we could, what kind of life would that leave us? Not much, to be sure.
     So we find ourselves always bewildered and horrified, as we should be, and in a state of collective shock, because it's so nonsensical, and utterly void of reason. That void is not one we are prepared to deal with, and we become desperate to fill it. With anything we can find. Some people fill it with faith in their chosen deity, and that helps. Some people need someone to blame, because identifying a cause for something brings it closer to reason. They blame parents, school systems, television, video games, peer bullying, whatever straw they can grasp at, not to excuse these tragedies, but to explain them.
     There are also always people who see these things as some kind of punishment, or a sign of ending times. Many of the rest of us, myself included, find it easy and helpful to get angry at them for reacting this way. It gives us a vent for our own pent up frustrations and fears. A vent many of us need, just to keep our perspective in check. And do we ever need it.
     Really though, it's just another attempt to put reason to the unreasonable, the chaotic and terrible. We are taught to think in terms of cause and effect, and not being able to put things clearly into this formula is strange and uncomfortable. We need a reason, and we take whatever we can get, because what choice do we have? We're desperate.
     Personally, I have no idea what it means, if anything, and I won't pretend to. I have learned that trying to apply my own meaning to events that are immeasurably bigger than I am only serves to confuse me more. All I can do instead is try to find some way to get over my own personal shock under control, and then do anything I can to help others do the same.
     Which in this case, isn't much, and what I little I have to offer is bittersweet, at best:
     The people in our lives that we love, that we cherish, are sadly no more permanent than we are, and the best we can do is hold on to them while we have them. Desperately.
     That's all for this week. Next, I'll see about some jokes.
-John