The price we pay for our fears is greater than the price we would suffer if our fears were realized. The tragedy is that our fears are usually groundless, so we choose to pay endless terrible costs in our minds and with our bodies to protect ourselves from nothing at all. We choose to put aside riches in our lives and instead don shackles that burn our skin and our souls.
We have it in ourselves to be free of these shackles. The cost is infinitely less than nothing, the reward is more than we could ever hope for.
In the wake of the terrible price we just paid for our fears we have, perhaps, an opportunity to choose to stop paying the fees for maintaining our fears. We could, perhaps, find it easily within our grasp to begin addressing the misconceptions which lead to the need to continue paying so dearly.
I posted the following on Facebook yesterday. A number of friends and family joined in the conversation that followed. It was, I think, a very healthy discussion.
The conversation helped me work through my emotions on the broader topic, though in all honesty I have still not managed to think much about the specific tragedy that triggered it. Each of the instances of violence this conversation is about are horrific in the true sense of the word, but what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary is so painful to think about – it inspires such stark horror to imagine – that I am not sure I will ever be capable of encompassing the event itself in my own mind.
If we can find it in ourselves to begin the process of becoming free of the cause of this tragedy, though, the tragedy itself may in time be honored with actions worthy of such an unthinkable cost.
I ask you to begin a similar conversation with yourself. To honor those who have paid the ultimate price for our chance at freedom by having this conversation with those around you. To take the small risk of testing your fears by exposing them to those you love, and perhaps help them save themselves from paying more than they have already.
Having finally read some about the Sandy Hook tragedy there is something I would like to say. This is not about this incident alone, it is not about just the shootings we see too frequently, it is about how we all together come to be living in a world where these things happen far too often.
We need more than better access to mental health care, though I believe we need that. We need more than fewer guns, though I believe we would be better off without them. What we need most is to stop feeding our fears, stop withdrawing, stop thinking the worst of ourselves and others.
The world is not getting worse, it is getting better in almost every way. The people we see around us are not intrinsically evil, they are intrinsically good.
This is the truth. This is what I see around myself. The human race is worthy and wonderful. The future of our species is more full of joy than sorrow. You can trust both those you know and those you do not.
If you are conservative, do not believe that liberals are evil, they are not. If you are liberal do not believe that conservatives are evil, they are not. Do not believe that mankind is a cancer on the earth, it is not. Do not believe that mankind is doomed, we are not. Do not believe that we cannot solve every single challenge we face, we can. Do not believe you have to fear the world, you do not have to.
These beliefs we hold and repeat – across and within political boundaries – are lies. They are untrue. They lead to despair, they lead to violence, and they are false.
Prior to the discussion yesterday the event and its surrounding causes had for me been focused on guns and mental health. There were too many guns in the hands of a troubled young man, there had been one too few at the school that could have stopped him. There was too little care provided to the young man to help him resolve his fears, there was too little care provided in our nation to help so many who cannot find a way out of their troubles without resorting to violence. But in beginning to talk about it here and continuing to talk with people of good will on Facebook it has crystallized for me as an issue that is broader and more a root cause.
Our feeling the need for defenses – whether weapons like guns or dogs or simply our withdrawal from each other – is a symptom of this root cause. Our need for care for so many who are so troubled is a symptom brought on by this cause. Addressing these symptoms is terribly costly and complex, in many ways unlikely and unobtainable.
But addressing the issue that leads to these symptoms is something we can each do for ourselves. Something we can each do in our small ways with little effort which can directly and demonstrably help those around us. It is something that our leaders can do without the need for debate, without budgets and consensus and compromise.
We need to cast aside our unfounded fears of others.
There are not enough guns, gates, dogs and locks in the world to protect us from each other if our fear that the world and our neighbors are evil forces out to take away our innocence. Our fears will continue to breed a reality which supports itself.
There are not enough caregivers in the world to heal the septic wounds we will continue to create in ourselves if we simply return home to pick at them obsessively, alone, in the dark. We will only re-inflict our wounds on ourselves and share our afflictions with those around us.
There is no other solution which will help us. There is no law or service we can seek which will remove our need for more laws, more services, more defenses.
No one can help us, here. No one can arm us or defend us from ourselves.
We can only help ourselves.
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